Bernie is really noisy, in a quiet kind of way. He is a sonic deep diver whose deep-sound plunges and sound-bed wanderings create rhythms and patterns that are intricate, interesting, and catchy.

The opening song on the album, Legend of the Mythical Man-month, is Federal Funk, and begins with a radio transmission of Richard Nixon declaring his non-crookedness. This reminds one immediately of Ron Howard’s film, Frost/Nixon. If this film was the source of inspiration for this number is unknown, but most listeners jaws will drop when Nixon states so earnestly: “I have never profited from public service”.

“Trying hard to live my life my way…” Ah, aren’t we all. Rut is my favorite track on the album, but they’re all good, and demonstrate a variety that is refreshing in this day of successful-recipe-songs.

Bernie creates soundscapes with a variety of textures. This album, the culmination of 5 years of studio work was is an inspired mix of jazz, blues, Pink Floyd, rockabilly, recording, playing and mixing all thrown together (look back at that opening sentence).

I really like it.

I don’t think you’ll hear Bernie on the radio, but the best art never is, and Bernie is great art. If you’re interested in hearing what sound, electronics, and talent can produce, Bernie is definitely worth a listen.

Reviewed by Gary Levinson

http://cobzilla.com

Sponsors of the 15th Annual Competition are: Guitar Player Magazine, New Music Weekly, Sony, Audio-Technica, Ibanez Guitars, D’Addario Strings, Mackie, Presonus, Imageline Software, Acoustica, Sonoma Wireworks, Intellitouch Tuners, SongFrame Software, Rockstar Texting, Acoustic Café Radio Program, Livewire Contacts, AirplayAccess.com, Loggins Promotion, Superdups.com, Sirius XM Radio, Sonicbids & Broadjam.

Please obtain the entry form at:
http://www.songwriting.net/entryform.html

Or enter online here with your MP3:
https://online.songwriting.net

Or via Sonicbids:
http://www.sonicbids.com/usasong

Or via Broadjam:
http://www.broadjam.com/contests/details/contest/index.php?contest_id=2032

Not since Dada Veda Nr. 2 first five tracks has Dada Veda given us a so compelling, so persuasive performance. Standing there like a 21^st century Bob Dylan (except of course for his orange monk’s uniform), Dada Veda produces outstanding renditions of ten of his latest songs.

This DVD, a video recording of his Love is the Best! album release performance from August 6^th, 2009, was filmed at a New York night club. Dada Veda’s live recordings have an authentic, convincing quality that is perhaps a bit more evasive on his smoother, slicker studio work.

With his furrowed brow, and the harmonica hanging around his neck, he introduces his songs in an affable, understanding way, giving us increased insight into their composition.

Among my favorite tracks from this DVD are We are never alone or helpless, From zero to hero, Liberate your mind, and I’m waiting for that time. The audience plays their part by giving Dada Veda a warm reception and with their participation really bring the title song Love is the best! to life.

Seeing and hearing Dada Veda’s progress over the years is really inspiring. It is a testament to the ability of people in general, and specifically of Dada Veda in particular, to grow and develop with time and the exercise of one’s métier. This DVD - perhaps, Dada Veda’s best ever - is outstanding. Bravo, Dada!

Reviewed by Gary Levinson

http://www.DadaVeda.com

Twenty years ago the hermetically sealed Berlin Wall burst open. The Wall’s fall is celebrated in the recent album from JAX, We Are The People. IndieMusicReview.NET’s Gary Levinson spoke with JAX’s Andy T.

Gary Levinson: Andy, first can you tell us your memories of what you were doing and how you felt when you heard The Wall was open?

Andy T.:

I was in Berlin-Kreuzberg, where I had lived for a very long time. When I heard of the opening on the morning of the 10th of November 1989, I went to Brandenburg Gate and after that to Checkpoint Charlie to stand there together with a hell lot of others. There, we banged on the roofs of the Trabis [Trabi is short for Trabant, a popular East German car], that came in to West-Berlin. I was very excited, because really no one ever thought that the wall would come down. The wall was a kind of normality for every West-Berliner.

GL: How did the project get started, and how were you motivated to get involved with this project?

AT: The first idea for the song rose up immediately after the change in 1989. Those days I was already making music in Kreuzberg, which was a very special place for musicians and artist from everywhere. I was doing gigs and sessions and spending some time in the studio. When I read in the German magazine “Der Spiegel” in November 1989, that the wall came down after 10315 days, I liked the special number and connected it with a good groove, We were jamming on in those days. At first I had the English verse “After 10315 days, history walls away…” But in 1989 and later on I did not have the opportunity to produce this. I would shortly be taking my first examination in law at the university and my life took me a different way, away from music.

This year I met my old friend Marcus Waibel and we had the idea to take the song and add to it, what had happened since then (ie: the financial crisis) to celebrate 20th anniversary of the Wall falling down, with a critical eye on today. We knew each other since the late 1980’s and had had good sessions in Kreuzberg back then. We composed and texted the song in German and English together and recorded it at Marcus’ Studio in Dreilinden, which was a high-security zone during the cold war, as an additional funny aspect. Marcus has his own label (WW-Records) and is a very good producer and a very good friend. He brought the singer Marnie and me together.

GL: It must have been difficult to find funding?

AT: We financed the project on our own.

GL: I notice that there is really an expert level of mixing on your synth / keyboard tracks. Whoever made them must have had many years experience….

AT: Marcus is a very good musician and producer and has a lot experience in the studio and even in producing film and TV for the German station Deutsche Welle. I have studio experience, as well.

GL: The music has a club sound to it. Do you know if in fact it’s been played here in clubs in Berlin? And if not, don’t you think it would be a good idea?

AT: We send a CD to Berghain and Tresor for example before the official date of the 9th of November this year. But I don’t know whether they played it. They never answered. If you do the PR as an indie project for your music on your own, it is very hard to get somebody’s interest, media or anyone and especially if you do a kind of ambivalent project like we did.

When we started with a press-briefing in July 2009, at our digital release with freibank recordings, we really informed every German newspaper, TV-Station, radio station and so on. Later on, we joined the mpn (music promotion network) and did a lot on our own, but interest in our project was very hard to find.

As an indie project or band you have to help yourself because you cannot afford PR-Agencies and Radio-PR and things like that. And there is normally no one who helps you for nothing. I mean, what you normally hear on the radio is only a very small part of the real music world that exists, isn’t it? Its pushed by big labels, with big advert budgets, who buy for their own products ratings in the charts and things. If you as an indie musician send a radio station something to play of you, normally they never do, because they do not get any money from you.
The worst of all is, that now some of our most clicked music-videos on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/jaxmusik) are being blocked by Warner music group. They are saying that this is their content. I think this is because they are one of the distributors. I’m trying to get more information about this, because no one tells you really what is going on. Even GEMA (German copyright collecting agency) normally does this, because they want to get money from youtube, says that they are using the videos commercially by showing adverts. Sometimes greedy lawyers try to tell you off, because you play your own music. For newcomers and indie musicians youtube is one of the most important “spread-out” media channels. It seems as if everything goes against you, if you try to go your own way. A big rip off. It makes me very angry. Next year we will realize a really cool website for artists that wanna go their own way.

GL: The lyrics seem to include the message that people are in charge of their own destiny. Would you like to comment?

AT: The Fall of the Wall in Berlin was a lighthouse of freedom for the Germans and the whole world later on. After the history of 20th century of Germany - leading to 2 world wars and the absolute moral down-coming in killing more than 6 million Jews - the extremely good moment of the peaceful revolution in 1989, by East German people going on the street was so wonderful and so important.

How could the demonstrators really know, whether it would happen the same to them, as it did on Tienanmen square just some months ago? These people were so courageous. Of course, they didn’t do it just on their own. Beginning with the Polish solidarnosc and the Polish pope and Gorbachev’s perestroika a lot of things led to this special situation. But the result and the thing to remember is “Don’t lose hope. Fight for your rights. You are strong if you go with others together. You are the people to decide. Don’t let a political and commercial might decide the different matters important to your life. ”

This is the democratic essence, away from a lot of lies and hedonistic PR and marketing standards which are used everywhere. The shout “We are the people” is the most mighty call that shows the wish and need of normal people to decide their lives on their own. Not to be just a number and economic client to buy things and be uncritically happy by doing that. No government and industrial or commercial might likes the people going on the street shouting “We are the people, we want to decide”. This is the ambivalent and funny thing with the memory of 1989. The official view tries very hardly to prevent saying that 1989 was a peaceful AND successful revolution. And comparing to other revolutions it was in fact the most peaceful one. But the powers-that-be don’t want this conclusion to get fixed in the head of the people.

A lot of things coming after the Fall of the Wall were good, like the freedom for the greatest part of the former East block countries and the rising of democratic rights for more people. But the bad side of the medal was the extreme greedy capitalism and cold neo-con thinking, as a result of the no-concurrence-situation of the capitalistic system, “end of history” and all that stuff lead us directly to the todays world, economic crisis and the neo-con way of minimizing social standards as far as possible. Their opinion, that human being should change into walking credit-cards and all around consumers. You’re only a good citizen, if you buy and consume and this is all? Climate change is also a result of that greed.

The Fall of the Wall and the actual economic crisis are the two culminating points of an epoch, that goes to an end. We cannot solve all problems only by growing economically. It simply does not work. You cannot eat money, you cannot drink money. Its just a change, not God-given. If our nature and our planet is destroyed, in order to have the most amount of any toys, cars, money, this does not help us breathing and living. We must change our way of living and thinking. Nothing in the whole universe grows endlessly.

The existence of the whole human race is in danger by the economic and climate crisis and it needs a new way of critical thinking and changing things.

GL: There are Chinese and Farsi versions of the song. How do you see these relating to the fall of The Wall?

AT: The fundamental idea of making different versions of our song, in a crossover project, is meant as a musical and cultural bridge and platform of interpretation for the ideas of the Wall falling, freedom and democracy by more artists from different musical styles and cultures. When the fall of the Wall brought freedom, our song and project should symbolize this also. So we could try to bring cultures and styles together, who does not seem to fit in the beginning, under the light of freedom.

We sent the musical tracks over the Internet to some international artists we know in Berlin. They did their interpretations and sent it back to us. We did the end mix and I think this was one of the most thrilling way to produce this crossover sampler. To get the outtakes back and to listen what the others done to it was so exciting and it felt so good in the end. I see this as a new way to work musically together in our digital world.

The Chinese version was a private idea, because I have a deep personal connection and respect to the Chinese culture and people. I found the wonderful singer Lin He and He Bo by advertising at the Berlin artists’ university. Lin He changed the lyric into a wonderful love song about being reunited after a very long time of being divided by a wall. I really love this version so much.

When we produced the songs in the studio, the news and pictures showed the demonstrating youth in Iran. We thought, wow, this is like a déjavu to the German change in 1989! Peaceful revolution with the starting point of cheated elections. In 1989 it also started with the obviously cheated communal elections in the spring. And who ever thought, that Iranian people would be so courageous as to go against their brutal regime? In our opinion it is really a shame, that the hopeful Iranian young people were oppressed by this regime for such a long time and under the former king (the shah) there as well. This revolutionary situation needed support and we wanted to honor their courage. The parallelism of Iran and Germany in this year 2009 was also seen by some journalists, but I don’t know whether there is another project to connect both.

We thought that it would be great, if we have a Farsi version of our song. Iran students living in Germany did the text and the singing and sorted out films and pictures for the Farsi music video. Because we don’t want to earn money out of that, we got in contact to amnesty international in Berlin. They will receive the part of income we get for the Farsi version.

GL: How has the initial commercial success been?

AT: Bad, the income doesn’t reach the costs up to now. But it was a so special working together with artists and creative people from different cultures and styles, we never want to miss this great experience. If the light of freedom and hope spreads out a bit by our project, this would be the greatest income we could have. But of course we would really like lots of people buy the album. You can get the album or the songs worldwide on the download-stores and in Germany at the Kulturkaufhaus Dussmann and at libri.de.

GL: What are JAX’s future plans?

AT: For an edition 2.0 of the actual album “Project D” we are still looking for musicians who want to make interpretations of the song. More Infos on our website.

We want to produce more songs for a complete album during the next months and you can find an unplugged version of the song “winner or loser” on our youtube channel jaxmusik.

GL: Thank you for your time, Andy.

AT: Thank you for the possibility of this interview Gary, and best wishes to all readers of IndieMusicReview.NET from Berlin.

Check out JAX at:

http://www.jaxmusic.de

http://www.youtube.com/jaxmusik

http://www.youtube.com/rosannaw

http://www.jaxmusic.de/Flyer_JAX_WSDV_eng.pdf

]]> http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?feed=rss2&p=78 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=77 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=77#comments Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:35:43 +0000 admin http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=77 Drum Dynasty
Mystic Sunrise / Dark Continent
reviewed by Gary Levinson

It’s been a cold and rainy early evening at the beginning of Advent here in Berlin, and I was feeling kind of bluesy.  Time to listen to some music! I tried putting on a few things; some new age, techno, folk, and none of them was really what I wanted to listen to. Then I put on Drum Dynasty.

This, their debut album, is a 2 CD album. I took a liking to it immediately, when instead of be entitled, each disk just has a color: Red is the Mystic Sunrise disk, and green is the Dark Continent disk.

The press release that came with the disk said that each disk was a separate musical journey. And indeed, as soon as I put on Dark Continent, I was transported directly to the Dark Continent, Africa, feeling the wind on the Savannah and the as-of-yet unknown smell of the air.   I was bluesy no more.

Mystic Sunrise sounds, appropriately enough, like a trip to a jagarti in India - reminding me of Jan Garbarek and his album Legend of The Seven Dreams - with Sitar sounds and incense burning; while listening to Dark Continent takes one to this continent, but without the turbulence.

These two disks are filled with 28 songs (over 90 minutes) of rhythmic music, most importantly percussion (with some strings and throat). The songs are world rhythms - an intense form of communication that everyone can understand.

Drum Dynasty with their two musical adventures create a musical ambiance that fosters the calming of the mind, and in a meditative way encourages focusing on the internal, the essential, the primal nature of rhythm.

Reviewed by Gary Levinson

http://www.drumdynasty.com

“That looks very futuristic!” my mother might declare in describing an avant-garde object or work of art. With this exclamation, she is almost certainly not referring to the artistic and social movement called Futurism, that in this year celebrates its 100th birthday.

Futurism, as a movement, was founded by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in 1909 with the publication of his Futurist Manifesto. Marientti was sick of the traditions and cultures left over from the last century (“We’ve had enough of the past!”) and made an appeal for a new dawn in the world of culture; one completely different from the past, in which the supposed triumph of technology over nature would be shown.

Futurism was an Italian phenomenon, having a French correspondent in Cubism, and a German pendant in Expressionism. While Cubism was an artistic movement concentrating on the tableau, Futurism concerned the whole of life, and the whole of artistic expression, encompassing every conceivable medium (even cooking! Marinetti deplored spaghetti for being so last-century.)

It was in Italy that Futurism, a culturally revolutionary movement encompassing all aspects of life, took place. In France, the more open and contemporary culture reduced the need for such a profound change.

The Futurists were nationalistic, supporting Mussolini and the fascist political organization in Italy. They were attracted to the Fascists populist presentations; especially the idea of modernizing their divided country, with its modern north (industrial Milan) and rural south.

Futurism was also accepted by groups of National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany, and had a large final exhibition there in 1934. After Hitler saw the Futurist art, in September 1934, he deemed it degenerate and forbid it along with Expressionism.

The Martin-Gropius-Bau, in Berlin has organized an exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of Futurism. In this comprehensive exhibition are works done in the various Futuristic media: literary, painting, sculpture, noises, theater props, etc.  The works shown give a rounded picture of the Futurist times and their means of expression.

The first works in the Futurist genre were literary.  Marinetti, who was a writer, set down the Futurist ideology in his Futurist Manifesto. He thereafter experimented with words, letters, and lines to make avant-garde onomatopoeic poems, writings and images.

Fortunato Depero, one the the most prodigious among the Futurist artists, is on display with, among many other pieces, his eponymously named Subway (1929), a graphic image composed of letters and lines.

There are many paintings by Gino Severini to be seen. These capture the eye with their richness of color and their complexity of form. When I asked the curator of the exhibition, Gabriela Belli, what her favorite work in the exhibition was, she immediately turned to Severini’s Souvenir de Voyage (1911). This multi-colored collage of various images relating to a voyage (buses, Taj Mahal, Alps, etc.) had been hidden for 60 years in a private collection before coming back to light on the market in 1995.

After showing me Souvenir de Voyage, Ms. Belli, director of the Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (MART), quickly turned to the far wall and pointed to Severini’s Ritmo plastico del 14 luglio (1913) saying that she really liked it because it embodied the different forms of Futurist expression: dance, theater, and painting all in one. Others in this vein were Severini’s Danseuse from 1913-14, and his Tramway sur le boulevard (1913).

A few of the images on display had a rather impressionistic look to them, especially one (which all the visitors stopped to look at) by Umberto Boccioni, entitled Nudo di spalle.

The Futurists were known to admire violence, and Depero’s painting La rissa (1926, the brawl), although monochromatic, held my attention for some time. It is an image in gray tones of two groups of Futurists fighting each other. I don’t want to read more into it than the artist intended, but one can perhaps see in it a reflection of the divisions in Italian society at that time, the struggle of the Socialists against the Fascists. Or perhaps the painting was simply a reflection of the Futurists’ love of violence.

Another work presaging trouble to come was Tullio Crali’s Incuneandesi nell’ abitato (1939) (Nosedive on the city), whose kamikaze-like image was surely thought of differently after the war.

In the same room as Depero’s La rissa, was to be found a sound installation producing a cacophony of noises that Futurists held dear: machine noses, automobile noises, voices, whatever.

Very difficult to find elsewhere is the very interesting display of Futurist theater props, which Depero made for the play Le Chat du Rossignol (1917). In addition to the props, there are to be seen many brightly colored marionettes, also from Depero, the Marionetti per i balli plastici (1918).

Sculptures on display included Depero’s Martellatori (1923, Hammerers), a work showing the close connection between Futurism and Russian cubo-futurism.  This sculpture bears a striking similarity to the Russian avant-garde art of the early Soviet years.

Futurism was an artistic movement with a long life-span beginning with Marinetti in 1909 and lasting up until the beginning of the second world war.

Though the majority of the works on display come from Futurism’s first decade, the exhibition has a real richness and depth. It is a fascinating and informative introduction to an art movement which has had a marked influence on dadaism and surrealism; cultural movements with which people in present-day society still have a close connection.

A beautiful catalog of the exhibition is available.

reviewed by Gary Levinson

review © 2009 Levinson

Martin-Gropius-Bau; Languages of Futurism:

http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/aktuell/festivals/11_gropiusbau/mgb_04_programm/mgb_04_aktuelle_ausstellungen/mgb_04_ProgrammlisteDetailSeite_1_12205.php

]]> http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?feed=rss2&p=76 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=74 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=74#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:31:44 +0000 admin http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=74 James Benning
LOS
reviewed by Gary Levinson

What is Los Angeles? To the people who live there, it’s many things. Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, Downtown lofts, really good “Mexican” food, waiting for a parking place at a shopping center, a completely jammed 8-lane (each direction) highway at 2am, probably mostly things to do with traffic.

For people who don’t live there? Hollywood, surfers on the beach, Malibu, golden hand prints (just like a mason’s insignia) in the pavement….

James Benning is a California insider. His film LOS, gives us 35 authentic postcard snapshots of what L.A feels like. Starting with the aqueduct (if you’ve lived there you know what a water shortage is), and stopping at, among other things, a billboard in West Hollywood, at the airport, at a highway, the desert, at a trash recycling center, at an intersection, on top of the Hollywood hills, at the jail, at the ARCO center, at an auto compacting facility, and yes at the beach, his filmings share with us his view of what it means to be L.A.

Although I thought that maybe there was a little too little emphasis on cars, traffic, and the brown turd that hangs over the city, watching this film brought back to me the real nature of what locals call La-la-land.

As outstanding as the film is in communicating the essence of L.A., it is not meant to be a travel record.

Like Benning’s other relatively recent films (RR, Ten Skies, 13 Lakes) LOS is a collage of filmings (I assume carefully chosen). In this case there are 35, each taken with a fixed camera position, with a fixed lens, in a fixed place, and each over a real time period of 2 ½ minutes. It’s easy to take the filmings for their own value (“Oh! I like that one!”), but of course the film should really be regarded in its whole.

Benning has said that the name of the film is simply LOS (and not LOS ANGELES), because he wasn’t trying to create a complete portrait of the city.

There is no dialog, there is no narrator, the surrounding sound is the only narration. After watching LOS I began to wonder why any films bother with dialog; it seems at best like a waste of energy, and at worst a significant distraction from enjoying the beauty of existence.

Viewing this film is also a chance to reflect on just how it is we perceive the world around us. First of all, our eyes are drawn to humans; when there is a human is the filming our gaze will be inevitably drawn to it. Also although we consider ourselves to be visual creatures, the surrounding sound is of immense importance in giving meaning to a scene.

The filmings are all very interesting, and we all have certain thoughts associated with the various things shown. If I can’t say that all the filmings are beautiful (Trash handling comes to mind: interesting to watch, but not really beautiful), some of the most mundane or routine things are simply beautiful. For example, watching the cars flow down the freeway at dusk on a rainy evening. Benning makes it easy to see and realize that there is beauty in everything, just waiting to be discovered.

reviewed by Gary Levinson

review © 2009 Levinson

Links (in German):

http://www.arsenal-berlin.de/de/verleih/news-anzeige/article/1693/239.html?cHash=d9749e2c52

http://home.snafu.de/fsk-kino/archiv/los.htm

]]> http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?feed=rss2&p=74 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=72 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=72#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:31:38 +0000 admin http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=72 Titus North
Operation Patriotic Toilet Seat
reviewed by Gary Levinson

Titus North in his Operation Patriotic Toilet Seat presents us with a novel that touches on youth problems, navy life, exotic travel description, the experience of learning a foreign language, unbridled power, and morality.

This conspiracy narrative is complex in nature, comparable to works by Thomas Pynchon, and David Foster Wallace, with a dark-humor side à la Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Although similar to these modern day authors, North’s work is maybe most like Voltaire’s Candide: although the events and situations may seem at times funny to us, they are definitely not to the characters in the story.

North’s freshman novel, Operation Patriotic Toilet Seat, is the story of a young man, Joe Retard, and his search for an identity and personality. Although attempting to direct his own life, he gets caught up in the repressive intricacies of this “best of all possible worlds”.

The book is enthralling, and riveting: at times I didn’t want to put it down, and when I had to go, I would first skip forward a few pages to find out how the situation-in-question turned out.

This novel is especially well suited for high-school students or developing young adults, with Joe being a very moral hero, and its warning about the creeping suffocation of personal liberty by authorities, making it ideal for the reading list at high-schools and universities.

Although there may be a few minor inconsistencies, and at places the prose seems to me a bit contrived, in others the writing is among the best I’ve read. In this his first novel, Titus North gives us a masterpiece that takes us traveling to distant countries, keeps us riveted to our reading, and best of all – while presenting important moral issues - makes us laugh. With its youthful themes, and the hero’s disregard for authority, this book is sure to become cult reading for young adults.

Reviewed by Gary Levinson
IndieMusicReview.NET

review © 2009 Levinson

publisher:
http://enlightened-pyramid.com/

]]> http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?feed=rss2&p=72 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=71 http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=71#comments Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:10:51 +0000 admin http://www.indiemusicreview.net/?p=71 Dada Veda
Love is the Best
reviewed by Gary Levinson

One of the Indie Music world’s most anticipated releases, Dada Veda’s Love is the Best is finally here. With his new album, Dada Veda presents us songs in a variety of musical directions: doo-wop, gospel, reggae, blue grass, barber shop, honky tonk, R and B, country, folk, rock….

Was it worth the wait? Let’s look at some of the songs:

We Are Never Alone or Helpless, the opening track is a rocking, southern R and B flavored song, reminiscent of some of Leon Russell’s work. It has a catchy Nashville sound, and it encapsulates the basis of yoga philosophy: “You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the stars guides you too.”

From Zero to Hero is one of my favorites. The honky-tonk riffs, and the slightly unpolished backing vocals support the song’s message: We all have the capacity to turn the zero into hero.

Liberate Your Mind is about breaking free from worry, and as such is also about basic yoga philosophy. The barber-shop style singing on the background vocals, makes it clear to all that even a group a 40-something men can be interested in this renunciation of worry. Like my Grandmother says: “Why worry? It doesn’t help.”

I’m Waiting for That Time is a song about longing for a hoped-for future time of social justice. It is appropriately in the style of worker-revolution songs from the 1920’s and 30’s.

A Better Deal is a song in a country-folk style, with backing vocals, and is really about the ethical treatment of some of the other sentient creatures on this planet, namely the animals, many of which are murdered to provide food for the species that is in the position of power to murder them, namely the Homo Spaiens. A Better Deal describes the satisfaction, both moral and physical, that comes from having a vegetarian diet. Diipak gives us on this number some interesting violin accompaniments.

My Heart Will Go on Loving You is the most rock oriented song on the album and is a spiritual love song.

Open My Heart Wide, a bhajan done in the style of 1950’s rock ’n’ roll. Listen to the doo-wop backing vocals. Can this be a true bhajan? My answer is simply: Why not?

Love is the Best: like my friend Praveda once said “Kjærlighet er alt!” (sometimes things can be said more succinctly in a foreign language. I guess the English would be “Love is everything”, or else maybe, like the Beatles said, “Love is all you need”) and that is the message of this song. Of all the songs on this album, this song has the most New York, that is to say Lou Reed style. It is an appropriate wrap-up to the Dada Veda penned lyrical content on this album.

The next songs are two versions of kirtan, yoga spiritual dance songs. The first, Good Old Kirtan, sounds like it could have been recorded live before a meditation session. The second, Kirtan Remix, is my favorite song on the album: Mantra music with the beat of today. It sounds like Joy Division or New Order gone from depressed to spiritual. And I was thinking that that is exactly Dada’s goal: to transform the feelings that people have in this materialistic world from the depressing to the uplifting, by realizing the spiritual nature of existence.

As we asked earlier: was it worth the wait? The answer is a definite yes. Dada Veda’s voice – his singing – has made a quantum improvement. Surely proof that practice makes perfect. The musicians are highly skilled, and the production, by Ryan Sam, is first class. With this album Dada Veda has raised the bar, not only for his own future albums, but for spiritually minded Indie Musicians as well. A real smörgåsbord of styles, Love is the Best is a real treat. Although the year is only half through, Dada Veda’s Love is the Best is one of the best Indie Music albums of 2009.

reviewed by Gary Levinson
IndieMusicReview.NET

http://www.DadaVeda.com

http://www.myspace.com/dadaveda

Smislovie Gallyucinacii (Смысловые Галлюцинации) is a five-piece Russian rock group, that comes from Ekaterinburg. Their name means Thought Hallucinations, and they have been playing together for over 10 years. As their name would suggest, their lyrics are rather intellectual, and at this concert they played some of their most famous songs, including their biggest hit, Why stamp on my love? (Зачем топтать мою любовь?)

The band plays together very tightly, and they have a strong, highly-rhythmic percussion and  keyboard dominated sound. The presence and skill of their keyboard player made itself known, especially towards the end of the concert when he took out and started accompanying the lead guitarist with a saxophone.

Their songs were enthusiastically received by the crowd, who sang and danced along to almost every number. One of the songs that stayed with me was Reason Will Win Out in the End (Разум когда- нибудь победит), another was the very addictive Nets (Сети).

They came back for a three song encore, and one of these songs was their one cover version of the session: a rocking cover of Kino’s Mom, we’re very sick (Мама, мы все тяжело больны). This was my favorite song of the evening.

About the venue: The German-Russian Festival is an annual festival attended to mostly by people of Russian origin living in and near Berlin. It takes place at the Trabrennbahn Berlin-Karlshorst harness racing track. What was amazing about this festival was the untroubled non-aggressive nature of the over 60,000 people attending. In addition to the inherently quiescent nature of the people, I attributed this to a complete lack of police tension: on the whole fairgrounds, I did not see even one police or security person, and this lack of official harassment helped contribute to the very peaceful nature of the event. When Russian people get together to celebrate, they do this in a very peaceful, non-aggressive way.

reviewed by Gary Levinson
IndieMusicReview.NET

http://www.gluki.ru/