Songs For Europe

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‘Songs for Europe’ is the highly anticipated recording by Philip Jeck and Janek Schaefer who are best known for their work using vinyl and record players in creative ways through performance and installation. On their debut album together they have produced music that bursts with energetic character, fleeting melodies and skittering rhythms that all translate an evocative sense of place.

In 1978 Philip first met 8 year old Janek performing a dance duo with his mum at the X6 warehouse on the banks of the river Thames. They next met 18 years later at the Royal College of Art where Janek was studying architecture and Philip was performing an afternoon concert while showing a video of his seminal installation ‘Vinyl Requiem’. This meeting directly inspired Janek to make his first multi-arm record player and to begin working with sound from vinyl. Finally, 8 years later in 2004, following many on stage collaborations, they spent two weeks on location in Istanbul and Athens producing ‘Songs for Europe’.

As an architect turned sound artist, Janek has always been interested in creating music that is site specific, music created from the context where it’s made. For this project, the basis for their collaboration became Cultural context. By using locally bought LP’s and 45’s of Turkish and Greek music, the records became the primary source material for their improvisation sessions. In Istanbul they worked on the top floor of an office block overlooking a city ravaged by a two day power cut snow storm. They collected vinyl from candle lit shops, and scanned the radio dial searching for stray waves. In pre Olympic Athens they were invited to stay and work in a decaying 30’s building at the foot of the Acropolis, accompanied by a pile of vinyl at the bottom of the sweeping stairs. The final tracks were collaged together in Athens without any further manipulation.