music

HAFTW’s Summer of Gigs

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The summer of Her Absence Fill the World was an interesting one.

The band; which were featured in the previous issues of DolmusXpress, went on its first three live shows throughout the course of last summer. 

First one was in a music festival called Art Carnivale in Steendam, Netherlands. 

Second one was in a club called Christa Kupfer, located on Maybachufer, Berlin. 

And the last one was at a streetfest called Kiezfest, on Mainzer Straße; in Neukölln.

These are three very different settings to play your first three gigs in, so it became impossible not to wonder how it felt for the band. 

We met up over Discord, and they answered four simple questions.

This was the first one.

Which one was the most challenging?

Sascha: I think Kiezfest, for me. I felt a bit strange about the audience, because it was a moving audience. If you’re feeling a bit nervous maybe, the moving audience will be more challenging in my opinion because you will not get a direct feedback regarding whether they like it or not. They kind of just ignore when they pass through. 

Kubi: I was thinking the first one was really challenging, but then listening to what Sascha was saying and then I realized that yeah actually the last one was challenging in a different way because people are moving. It’s hard to focus, it’s really hard to build an atmosphere playing on the street. 

Kubi then adds,

Kubi: For me they were all actually challenging in different directions. But it’s good to be challenged, right?

Sascha: I think also the feeling you got afterwards, when you look at it retrospectively; it’s the balance of anxieties or challenges you had before compared to the reward you feel afterwards and for that I think the last one was the most challenging, because the reward wasn’t balancing enough. 

Which very gratefully brings us to the second question. Which one was the most fulfilling?

Sascha: The first will always be super special and beautiful, and it felt very fulfilling. The one in the club too, they were fulfilling in different ways. I can’t really pick between those two.

Kubi: It’s really hard to rank them. The first one was super magical. It was our first concert, first of all. Also we were weirdly headlining. In our first concert. So it was extra pressure and it was a bit ridiculous but it was amazing. We prepared for months for that concert. 

But I would say Christa Kupfer was really special for me too because Christa Kupfer is home to me and we were presenting our project to our friends. Our family I would say. Because of that it was like a launch for us. 

The conversation then drifts into how the experience of a live performance is split in two ways: The preparation and the act. That brings us to our third question.

Which one was the most exciting?

Sascha: I think they were differently exciting. In the festival there was a more surprising and nice interaction with the people, but the club was exciting as well. It’s nice to see how music works in different surroundings and moods and where it can bring you emotionally in different settings. For example the Kiezfest was also exciting in this way, maybe exciting doesn’t have to mean positive all the time. It was exciting to see what’s happening there, which songs are working where and where they bring you emotionally. 

Kubi: I would agree with that. We had three different concerts in three different settings. We already have more gigs scheduled and what we have in the future will either be this or that. I mean I can’t imagine a different setting than a festival, or a club or a street festival. 

So we arrive at the final question.

Which one would they like to do again now that they know what they know?

Sascha: I think I would do the first two again. Not to make it better but it was super nice. I think I would feel a bit more relaxed so I can enjoy it a bit more. The last one was good practice as a performing artist, to play in front of an audience which is not giving you direct attention. I think even if it’s just one person, even if you feel maybe disappointed about it or disappointed about their reaction; I think it’s a good practice to play in front of them because this is your job in this moment. I think it’s good, even though it feels maybe weird. 

Kubi: Seriously, I’ll be really honest: I wouldn’t go back to any of them. They were amazing but they were once-in-a-lifetime things. But I have a wish. If I really had a magical power to go back I would go to our first concert as an audience member. I would love to experience that. I think at the end of the day it was an interaction and it doesn’t matter which end you are at -either the audience or the band. In the concert there were moments where we felt unified and I enjoyed it but I would enjoy it also from the audience perspective. 

Instagram: @herabsencefilltheworld
Spotify: Her Absence Fill the World

Interview: Yiğitcan Erdoğan

Her Absence Fill the World – Inside, Outside

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It is a rebel. It is a crisis. It is a sad resistance.

KUBI
  • Can you describe the main components of your aesthetics you have been constructing through your music? What kind of artistic, cultural, and social inputs have fed your music so far and constructed “Her Absence Fiil the World”?

Kubi: For me, “Her Absence Fill the World” is an intuitive outpouring gathering whole our past experiences, attempts, failures and orientations. It is a project merging our diverse transnational roots, aesthetics and ideologies.

It is a rebel. It is a crisis. It is a sad resistance.

Sascha: There’s nothing I would add since this is so beautifully said. Maybe that I like the idea that it is somehow shaped by all my past selves. I can discover so many memories of myself in the music which comes out – sometimes I’m surprised. Also because I don’t always want them to be part. I don’t know if this is about shame. It’s really intimate and makes me sometimes feel vulnerable when passed identities of mine come to light – and since we make music together it’s sometimes really hard to discuss them and for them to be seen. But I feel it is important to accept also parts of ourselves we don’t like. I do not mean to like them and to feel positive about them. But to build the strength not to hide them because they’re part of the mosaic we call identity.

Photo Credit: Emrah Özdemir
  • How is your journey going so far? What have you found on the way? 

Sascha: In my opinion our journey is going like the best journeys are – a journey to Ithaka. I found a lot of joy, a lot of pain. Some pride and insecurities and I don’t know where exactly this will lead to. For me it feels like growing constantly and of course that is not always a good feeling. But somehow we try to release our emotions to music and for that the result is always precious for me. 

  • It seems you benefit and use inputs from many genres. How do you prefer to address your music in terms of genres?

Sascha: I would address our music generally as post-punk. It’s not that easy, I feel we’re still shaping our style – or maybe it is just shaped by itself depending of what comes out of us. But I can identify mostly with that. I guess the real categorization to a genre can just be made after we produced everything we’ll ever produce. 

Photo Credit: Emrah Özdemir
  • Why now?

If Not Now – Tracy Chapman

If not now, then when?

If not today,

Then, why make your promises?

A love declared for days to come,

Is as good as none.

You can wait ’til morning comes.

You can wait for the new day.

You can wait and lose this heart.

You can wait and soon be sorry.

If not now, then when?

If not today,

Then, why make your promises?

A love declared for days to come,

Is as good as none.

Now love’s the only thing that’s free.

We must take it where it’s found.

Pretty soon it may be costly.

‘Cause if not now, then when?

If not…

  • What do you expect to find in the future?

We are constantly playing with ideas. There are some couple of tunes that we feel like sharing yet we don’t know if we go with singles or shares as a whole in a label.

Interview by Tevfik Hürkan Urhan 

Solo Pájaros: “Birds Die, You Remember the Flight!”

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From the depths of the heart, with brutal honesty, comes the sound of this volatile band. Inspired by the sublime flight of the bird, the music of “Solo Pájaros” brings to the stage the powerful joy of living. Their lyrics describe the sadness that often haunts the human walk with the desire to turn it into poetry capable of raising wings in every curious listener. If we were to let his music be carried away by the wind, it would have no certain whereabouts, but would travel without a flight plan, trying to reach all the places in the world. It would treat the small as something big. The darkness of the moon as the brightness of the sun. And the inevitable death as a flash of life.

Initially three of the band members (Trini, Alex and Jan) started playing at the beginning of 2014. Singing in constant movement in the trains of Berlin, Madrid and Barcelona. Two years later two new important musicians (Antonella and Uaio) joined the band. From there the constellation that nowadays conforms the band would be aligned. Two women and three men. Five musicians. Three strings. Two percussions. And five voices.

They give their musical support in various solidarity events. They toured festivals in Hungary and Germany. In the middle of 2016 Trini and Alex leave the band and two new members join; Sebastián Yaniez first playing electric guitar and charango. A year later Sebastián Rosales joins on drums, where the band changes the sound of the cajon for that of a drum kit. They record and mix their songs between the walls of their rooms. They film their own video clips. They write their own songs. They are not afraid to feel the fall in order to find the flight.

To listen another song of them:

Her Absence Fill the World – EP Launch (Gazino Berlin Session)

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After releasing our EP “Part-Time Punk” on Detriti Records, we feel more motivated than ever to play our music, make new tunes, and vibe with you people. So, we would like to have a tiny session with you to celebrate our EP.

While hoping to play for you in smokey, trashy bars and clubs, this time we invite you to a tiny online session in our Gazino in Wassertorstrasse, Berlin.

We would love to pass our warmest thanks to Kor for mastering our sound. Big thanks also go to Dolmus Magazine and NCOUNTERS for supporting us in this event. Without any of them, this event would not be possible.