Herman Martin..

A new short film called ‘Avant Partir’ by Annick Ghijzelings, which I did the soundtrack for, is released in the somewhat rarefied world of art films. Apparently everybody cries at the end, even I did when I finished it!

“La lune“, the art film I produced in 2003, is about to get another airing, this time in the Belgian coastal town of Ostend. Curator Gerry Smith has brought together 40 artists on the theme of “outdoors”, a slightly different slant to his original exhibition, translated into fake-Belgian as “Buitendoor” (“buiten” means outside in Dutch). “I would often take the train from London to Folkestone, sail the sea to Ostend and then on to Brussels,” says Gerry. “These journeys came to an end with the introduction of the Eurostar. I felt perhaps a series of exhibitions at these four locations might prevent an outbreak of nostalgia for places I believed were special, but no longer visited on a regular basis. Speed isn’t everything and at the end of the day, the Eurostar despite all its grandness, is still only a train. So now I am thinking ——– BOATS.”

The exhibition will feature work by Gerry himself, Orla Barry, Marcel Broodthaers and a selection of his favourite Anglo/Belgian artists! Catch it at Hotel Andromeda, Kursaal Westhelling 5, 8400 Ostend between February 15 and April 19. (A little) more about “La lune”.

Been putting all the stuff like photo shoots and cover designs together, and it looks good to me. Marie Biebuyck did some moody photos in an abandoned brewery… “Stranger in a Strange Land” Yep, that’s definitely what I feel like over here!….. Started talking to possible musicians for the live set…… the electro side of it all is proving to be a bit awkward but it’s coming together!…Take a listen to some of the tracks on the “Jazzoid” page.

So what’s falling apart? Bollocks! Lots of techie problems. I had to re-install all my DAW stuff onto a new computer… It took me about 4 weeks… sounds improbable I know……  you don’t believe me…. Maybe there’s some virtue in just playing the trumpet or harmonica.  then there would be no need for all this computer stuff… but I couldn’t function without it. Technology for the masses…Ha!   Anyway, back to agonising about the next bi-tonal twentieth I suppose……

I just came across some material I worked on with Sam Gyselbrecht a year or two ago. .bonk (note that dot in front of the “bonk”) was an opportunity to take some wild and wonderful heavy electronic music and integrate it, all based around a concept, with spoken word and other things. We basically created segments and were then able to improvise as we went along. Some of the tracks went on for forty minutes. The versions below are shorter.


Incidentally, if you have a website, you can post the tracks and earn a commission. Problem with this link, then click on the Bonk music interface.