Frey

Last time recording from my living room like a noob before I start dedicating my free time to moving into a new place with a dedicated recording studio like a posh noob (the poster comes with me).

This will delay my album a little, but oh well. Lots to do for this weekend, I decided to rerecord a guitar solo because it sounds too much like eagle eye cherry, there's one track on which I want to see if I can record vocals doing a Lana del Rey impression, and I still need to write a song about how we're all dying in a golden submarine.

Here's to channeling your urge to create towards more exciting things than beef ✌️

While we're waiting for me to progress on my new album (thanks guitar blisters I thought had healed too soon), let's talk a little about the songs I released last year.

In the spring of 2021, I experienced several blows that affected me in various aspects of my life, and I found myself listening to a couple of Italian songs over and over again. No matter where I was in my emotional journey through this annus horribilis, there were always the same handful of Italian songs I went back to.

I've always had a complex relationship with Italian music: On one hand, I always felt drawn to the emotional depth expressed by the lyrics, and always appreciated the songwriting behind it all, but on the other hand I always found it a little cringe that these songs were only accessible to Italian speakers, who might even take them for granted as part of their musical cultural heritage. I would struggle to see the difference between a genuine masterpiece and just this year's Sanremo winner (think Eurovision, but less gay and strictly national rather than European: in short, just the cringe parts and none of the fun ones), and to be honest that difference often didn't even exist - a hard lesson to learn for a kid growing up as an utter snob.

Yet here I was, a German-Italian living in Belgium in 2021 experiencing one of life's finest curve balls, going back to the same old Italian songs again and again. There were a handful of songs in particular that I kept listening to, because they represented an emotional journey I could relate to, even though they were written by different artists at different times.

I decided that I felt these songs hit so close to home that the only way to tell the world how I was feeling was to translate them and record them in today's global language of music, the language of my peers and the lingua franca of the 21st century, English, not so much because of a globalist agenda, but mostly because these songs have a universal appeal and need to be universally understandable.

I thus set out to translate the lyrics to these songs that kept me going - and I did a bloody good job at that too, I might add - and then came the time to record them. I knew I wanted to focus some of my time on being a musician, but what was my style, what was my voice?

I believe 40% in music is inspiration, and the other 40% is imitation. Whatever percentage remains (I'm s**t at math) is personality and individualism, which adds this unique flavour that, in itself, comes from the personal influences that have shaped your taste.

For so long I've despaired about humankind having reached the end of its potential in terms of musical expression, until it dawned on me that the innovation potential in music nowadays doesn't lie with discovering new sounds and new trends, but rather with synthesising bespoke combinations of inspirations from the plethora of styles and influences that existed in parallel since the prism of popular music shattered back in the late 60's already - with so many styles and subcultures around for the last half century, novelty is found in combinations that are either completely new, or hit particularly close to home, or feel like they have always been meant to be.

My combination ended up being the hard-hitting emotional lyrics of these Italian songs, combined with the sound of David Bowie – And not just because I felt deeply uncomfortable singing, and doing a Bowie impression on the vocals helped me see the recording sessions as acting rather than singing, which felt more familiar to me.

By translating these songs into a universally understood language and recording them in a style heavily inspired by my very own personal idol, I could take these songs that were previously only accessible to a handful of Italians and turn them into something that is both accessible to everyone else globally, but also still expressed through a deeply personal lens of musical influence. I took songs that previously only belonged to other Italians, and made them both mine and everybody's.

So much for the general motivation for doing Battiato, Battisti and de André through a Bowie lense in English. In the next couple of days I will post about why I picked the songs I picked and how these originally unrelated songs fit together to tell one story, and then I'll go into some more detail on the individual tracks and talk some more about the inspirations for each one.

In the meantime, here's the link to the whole album again. Maybe you can already see a story in the way these songs have been selected and covered without me having to talk too much about where I was coming from with these - after all, I think art succeeds at its job when it makes you think things about yourself without necessarily saying anything on its own: is it the versatility of possible interpretations we're drawn to? Is it the fundamental relatability of the abstract message? Who cares.

Two Worlds A collection of songs by Italian singer-songwriters that I translated into English and covered in my style. The Album is called Two Worlds - because it brings together the world of music sung in Engli

It's Friday 8pm, I've just come back from hosting a meeting with a trade association on EU digital policy and now it's time to get out of my day job clothes and go to work on my other job.

Every couple of weeks, I keep one weekend absolutely free and do nothing but work on my music. On this weekend's agenda: finish production on a couple of tracks, and maybe lay down a demo for a new one. I have three more songs in mind for my album, and then it'll be finished and ready to release. Can't wait to show you guys what I'm working on!

Needless to say, my album will be a concept album about modern life.

Cliché, me? NAURRR

FML I came up with a bassline yesterday that adds just the right touch of dissonance to the track and is really fun to play. So much fun that I now have a massive blister on my finger.

No more string instruments for me this weekend, which is a shame because I want to rerecord the guitar in one part because I want to try doing a key change. Maybe I'll just transpose the audio for now.

It's a bummer but there's enough to work on with vocals, keys and production to give my blistered finger a rest.

It's Friday evening, and I just closed my laptop, taken off my consultant hat and put on my artist hat.

I block one weekend every month or two where I won't make any plans, lock myself in my flat and work on my music. Step by step, that's how I slowly complete my album. Most of the lyrics are already written, and I try to write the music, lay down instrumentals and record a vocal demo in the course of a weekend. When all these are done comes the tedious part, the fine-tuning production and ironing out any kinks I might have spotted in the meantime in the instrumental or vocal tracks.

Before I start recording, I go to Lidl down the road and buy a specific set of supplies: a 3 liter box of cheap Chilean Chardonnay, red peppers to make a risotto, bread and cheese for grilled sandwiches, and s**tloads of fizzy sour gummies. Like a rockstar's demands for specific snacks to be put in their dressing room on tour, I found that this combo works best for me.

This weekend I want to record the opening track of my new album, which I want to call "Face Down in the Beans". A good friend of mine came up with that expression and has given me permission to use it. I have a semi-finished set of lyrics, and a couple of musical ideas but no clue how to make it all come together well. I guess we'll see in the course of the weekend!

If I hit a good streak and manage to remember I'm supposed to keep this page alive, I'll try and post a work in progress sneak peek or sth.

This will end up reading like a LinkedIn Post but screw that - I want to talk about what got me into making music more seriously.

I've been intensely keen about music all my life, playing the piano since age 10 and later picking up guitar as a teenager. I then got frustrated because I never managed to play barre chords and my fingers kept getting stuck between the strings, so I moved to bass because the space between strings is bigger there, so no fidgeting and no chords to bother with. I had a band in high school with my best friend and we called ourselves Frozen Fish, but it was just the two of us so we would record tracks separately, he would sing and play guitar and I would play keys and bass.

I had an amazing music teacher in high school who made us write and record tracks on a DAW - Logic, available for PC because Apple hadn't bought it yet. He gave me a copy of the software, so I spent my teenage years recording tracks. Thank god most of them are lost.

Around that time I was really into 70s prog rock, minimalist classical and post-rock like Sigur Rós and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I wanted to become a composer for film soundtracks, and applied to study composition for film and TV at an arts college in England.

But I was also keenly interested in politics and international affairs, due to my double nationality and upbringing in the EU environment in Brussels. I also wanted to become a diplomat, so I also applied to study international relations.

I received unconditional offers for both courses, so I was faced with a choice. I figured that I can always make music without a music degree, but not having a degree in international relations would make it hard to enter that world, so I went for the more serious degree.

What followed were years of launching myself into one of the two worlds I wanted to be part of, and neglecting the other, culminating with a job in the European Parliament. I was actively involved in politics, campaigning for my party, and writing important legislation. I was going to have a stellar career in my party and in the EU institutions, and it would only have made sense to invest more and more into making it as far as I could.

Then covid hit, and that world came crashing down. I left the European Parliament due to a perfect storm of adverse factors, and found myself in a deep identity crisis: if I'm not strong enough to stay in the world of EU politics, what is my life worth? Wasn't that what I was meant to do with my life?

Making music gave me back my sense of purpose, and most importantly taught me the lesson that your worth as a person and your contribution to the world is not defined by, or limited by, your job.

At the same time, I reject the notion that you have to choose one path of your life and dedicate all your energy to that exclusively. Just as I realised there is more to life than sacrificing everything to politics, I also would never want to make a living with music.

What would I do with that? My artistic interests are too eclectic, if I was to depend on selling records to make a living I would either starve, or have to compromise with what interests me as an artist, and I'd have to go on tiktok and promote myself systematically and honestly that would take all the joy out of this. I want to make music to express what I feel or to explore creative whims, if it's about competing for streams, sales and attention then there are far better people than me slogging away at that already.

Besides, I'm good at navigating the world of EU politics, and I enjoy doing that too. Why would I have to choose?

I found the balance that allows me to do both, and enjoy the good parts of both whilst reducing the impacts of the bad aspects of both:

Making music in my spare time, as a hobby but pursued seriously, helps me remember that you are defined by more than what you do professionally. Most importantly, it saves me from the existential pressure and anxiety that your whole identity depends on your job.

At the same time, making music as a hobby means I still get to live the life of the eurobubble job - with all the ambition and satisfaction that comes with it, but most importantly it keeps my music free from commercial constraints: I want to record a project of Tibetan chant set to drum&bass beats? What's stopping me! So what if not a single soul on the planet (except my mum) will listen to it, I don't need to sell records! I have a job I'm good at and happy with!

The only limited resource in this life is time. It IS possible to work your ass off at your desk, spend a few weekends with your loved ones or just to recharge and do absolutely nothing, and then take a weekend every now and then to lock yourself up in your studio (and before you scream privilege: with that I mean my studio apartment) and do nothing but work on your tracks all weekend. It takes more time, but it's a long project and eventually you will release an album.

There's no better feeling than the freedom of thinking "my job is such a slog - but at least I'm writing an album" and "omg what if this album never gets done - but at least I have a fulfilling job".

So yeah, that's where I'm coming from with the whole music thing. And that's also why I'm extremely keen to interact with you "as a musician" as opposed to just a friend or that weird guy you met at a conference once, because it makes this world more alive and tangible.

And hey, if I end up sucking at both my job and the music, I can always become a life coach! 🤗

Hi everyone! I have to post frequently to appease the algorithm, but since I don't have new music every day and I'm not desperate enough yet to post reels of me playing the ukulele, I'm just going to talk a little about what I do.

In the coming days I'm going to write about what it's like to have a serious day job and pretend to be a musician at the same time (is he delusional? Has he found the secret to a happy life? Isn't he scared he won't have time to do either of them well enough to be successful?)

I'll also give you a little update on what I'm working on (hint: it's an album), and maybe take some time to talk a bit about my first album Two Worlds (available on SoundCloud now!) and my thoughts behind the way I translated and arranged the songs. Maybe we can even play a game where I tell you all the Bowie references I built in, and you can count how many you noticed.

It will probably bother me immensely to pass off as such a shameless self-promoter, but if we're going to play the pretending game that I'm a musician, then I might as well also write my own Pitchfork articles about my stuff.

In the meantime, I've already fed the algorithm one post and I've said absolutely nothing, tee hee hee! More to follow soon, or "big things coming up!", as we say in the business.

My first album was released via SoundCloud last year. It's a collection of songs by Italian singer-songwriters that I translated into English and covered in my style. The Album is called Two Worlds - because it brings together the world of music sung in English that is accessible to international audiences, and the world of Italian "cantautori" whose songs are beautifully lyrical, emotionally charged but aren't really that well known to people outside of Italy.

I selected these songs not only because they are important to Italian culture, but also because in their combination, they speak to me on an emotional level and tell a story. I hope I have managed to bring across their lyrical depth in my translations in order to tell this story to you.

Two Worlds A collection of songs by Italian singer-songwriters that I translated into English and covered in my style. The Album is called Two Worlds - because it brings together the world of music sung in Engli

2 years ago I decided to pursue my music interests with more dedication, set up my equipment and wrapped my head around working on a DAW. What came out is this little track: a cover of Friend of the Night by Scottish Post-Rock besties Mogwai.

Friend Of The Night A cover of Friend of the Night from the 2006 Album Mr. Beast from Scottish Post-Rock band Mogwai. All own material, no elements of the original song have been used in this track.

So I've gone and set up a page for my music stuff, not so much out of vanity than being able to share my stuff more easily. This way you can follow me for my tracks and be spared all the mundane posts and boring holiday photos!