The Cinnamon Tour
Yuriy Andrukhovych and Karbido band (Poland)
"Cinnamon" video
"Cinnamon" album
The Cinnamon Project is a combination of poetry, music and video. Yuriy Andrukhovych texts from the book "Exotic birds and plants" read by the author have got a sudden musical form thanks to the musicians of the Karbido band. This music is a mixture of perfect moderateness of a traditional radio play and energy of post-rock. The CUBE VJ-band and ArtPole will prepare a video projection specially for the Cinnamon and it will be displayed as a background to the presentation. By the time of the Ukrainian tour there will be a Ukrainian version of the Cinnamon album released including a bonus India addition. More information on the album.
The Cinnamon was created in a traveling sound recording studio: the album was recorded in Urekhta, Drohobych, Warsow and Vroclav; Tsumtor recorded a part of the drums section in the Swiss city Haldenstein and some sound environments were caught in the streets of Jerusalem and Hong Kong. In May 2008 in the frameworks of the international festival of Bruno Shultz in Drohobych there was the first performance of the material prepared for the Cinnamon, 'cuz it was Shultz the project gained its title from.
The Cinnamon is the second part of the triptych called "Samohon. Cinnamon. Absinthe" and respectively it's the second project made by same people. Their first joint work – Samohon — was successfully presented in Ukraine (in Kiyv, Lviv, Dnipropetrovsk, Uzhgorod and Ternopil) a year and a half ago.
Project "Cinnamon" suggests new way of acception of the poetry work: instead of black lines of the letters there are audio and video images, instead of reading there is listening and watching. Yuriy Andrukhovich poetry from the edition "Exotic birds and plants" sounds under the music of Polish - Swiss band Karbido and is accompanied by the video of ArtPole and vj-group CUBE. Original introduction of the poetry always touches the listener, as far as the voice, intonation, acents give the unique chance to dig into the poet`s world, get closer to his images and feelings and feel this personally. But music and video in "Cinnamon" do not illustrate the poetry – they are the parallel stories, which interact harmonically, and while the action both get appart and together.
Yuriy Andrukhovich:
I read my texts following the music frame. Sometimes I even began to sing. Intonations, which I used, made the musicians to inrich each composition. For a long time the inrichment and recording lasted. But initially I did not know that the trembeling of the pigeon wings or the sound of the brass band in the park – are not the samples, which are usual for every DJ. Everything was really live recordered in different far places of the planet. But the video was made within the space of one desk, so this is such a special space limitation, creation of the own artificial worlds and the seek of the association reflection just around yourself. And again – all the sequences are filmed independently, but are not rent from another video . So this is such examples of out and inner worlds. And when I realised this everything, this disturbed even me.
It seems that we had created something new at the audience glance - any new direction or style of the applied art, which is now without name. The project is being transformed all the time. Everyone of us had his mistakes, and we dscussed them rather frankly, argued, made changes in the introduction. I am not sure, that all the audience had understood and accepted us in the same good way. And this is good as well – we have space to improve the project.
Marek maot Otvinovskiy, band Karbido:
Tour «Cinnamon» within Ukraine was fantastic, impressive, extraordinary, amazing and fine. We could go on playing several weeks more. I think that the listeners understand us. We like to play with the habbits of the listener and this was rather well accepted in Ukraine. Every Cinnamon story is special, there is something favourite for everybody of us in every story, but the most favorite one is "India" – this is the experiment the most. In total about the tour within the Ukraine: the roads are bad, people are loved, all the concerts are amazing energy charge for the next year, although we want to return right now.
You can learn more about Karbido impressions from Ukrainian tour, as well as audio records from the concert.
Olya Mykhayliuk, ArtPole:
It is an extra interesting situation, when all the participants of the project live in different places – Kyiv – Ivano-Frankivsk — Warsaw — Wroclav — Galdenstein. Everybody of them made his own part while staying apart both in space and in time, as far as the poetry was written long ago.
On the base of poetry and music images the visual ones appeared – they are rather independent per their sense, they are created in association of exact connection of the subjects, factures, colours with the help of light. Just the snares were put in the conscious and subconsicious, the associations, that occurred while album listening, were caught by this snares. And then we found just the correspondings of these images in the world, that surrounds us. For example, this is the levels of roses and nets, wings not for the fly. We tried to tell the story of Mrs. Kapitanova by the still life of stuffy, waste, lonely women life. Doctor Pipe is about the loneliness as well – his paper throne can be easily distroyed, forgotten, lost, like everything that surrounded him, and just the words " will flow to the eternity». «The Decoraion Change» is specially ironic video. This is an angry, rude collage, whose characters are the journal cuttings, rather different per time and background.
So once we met at last, and had the opportunity of direct contact. Here and now we could share our thoughts as for the poetry, music, video. It seems that we managed to find the connection points of words, sound and visual images. This points had the greatest effect. As far as after the concerts the audience got the emotion that "Cinnamon" creates – the light shows the way…. They entered the darkness of the city and were very impressed and full of sence of new space and self understanding.
VJ DaPix, vj-group «CUBE»:
During the concerts we had to invent mini-technolgy, thanks to which the key, "main" sequences concured with music or solo accents. It is clear, that while live playing there were no any sinchronisation, but these are VJs who save the situation. This visualisation can be hardly named as VJ-ing, it is more close to video engineering. Totally the audience accepted sintez of sound and video. It was completely new experience. If while rave performances the main thing is rythm, in the projects like "Cinnamon" the main thing is suspension and stylistic unit, this is more dificult and responsible.
VJ Glow, vj- group «CUBE»:
By the first album of Andrukhovich and Karbido «Samogon» some part of the audience had been already acquinted with the visualisation. That time it consisted of cinema citation plus live camera and lots of effects. Naturally this time a lot of people were surprised at author video works. It is much more interesting than «traditional» VJ-ing. It is not just successful mix, but multifunctional job: idea, filming, decoration, light, cutting. We worked in different Ukrainian concert halls, and we used their advantages, and every time we used new decisions. And this minus became the plus, as far as fnally we had six different visual concerts, that was rather interesting.
In April'2010 Cinnamon tour was as a transcendental wave in Ukrainian cities: Іvano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Vinnitsa, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv. After that — in May — in ten Polish ones. At the end of May, "Cinnamon" was invited to the festival Bruno Shults in Drogobych. For the participants of the project it was extra important event, as far as one of the most famouse work of Shults is "Cinnamon shops". Thes is the work that inspired to create the project "Cinnamon". Later there were the performances at the literature festivals in Gdynya and Berlin. During the Lviv Litf'2010 Yuriy Andrukhovich, Olya Mikhayliuk and DaPix presented «Cinnamon», having demonstrated the separate independent video works.
Massmedia about the tour in april'2010
"5th channel"
"1+1"
"24 channel"
"The Day"
"Young Ukraine"
INTV
"Maidan" ("The Square")
"Vysokyi Zamok" ("High Temple")
Pile of post cards
Karbido's audience has already been used to the musicians combining the opposite sounds easily and to their creative anomalies allowing them to make music of pigeons' wings flapping or street noise. To create the music this time they've made field prerecords of various sounds. The all year long studio session ran in many different places and sometimes even simultaneously. It's safe to say that the Cinnamon has emerged in a traveling sound recording studio.
The album was recorded in Urekhta, Drohobych, Warsaw and Vroclav; Tsumtor recorded a part of the drums section in the Swiss city Haldenstein and some sound environments were caught in the streets of Jerusalem and Hong Kong.
The Cinnamon is a cyclus of 12 sound pictures. The musicians have returned to the post-rock trends mixing noise, minimal or ambient with energy of fanciful ballades, tangos and waltzes. They add repercussions of old billets, roundabouts and gramophones, then drown them in guitar plunk and distort them by rhythms of trans. Numerous sound layers are amplified by exquisite electronic and psycho-acoustic experiments.
Power of mystery
Certainly, the album's center of attraction is Yuriy Andrukhovych. He turns his own poetry into a hypnotic tale using charismatic voice of different timbres. He tells about weird dwellers of half-ruined houses ("Doktor Dutka", "Pani Kapitanova", "Staryi Oliynyk"), dark stories of the darkest corners of an old city ("Mafia", "Postril", "Azart"), and, at last, about bulldozers of time and history which level the past world with the ground ("Zmina Dekoratsiy", "Pidzemne Zoo").
with a bonus India addition
The album comprises a bonus addition which is the suite in five parts called India and been performed as improvisation by the band for a few times in 2008 during the Ukrainian tour promoting their previous album Samohon. The India is an individual work and can be described as a philosophic and transcontinental electronic ballade with elements of ethnic coloring. This composition appeared in parallel with the main Cinnamon session, during work on vocals, so it also reflects the atmosphere of creative midnight amok.
It is intended for the collectors constantly traveling around the world.
Yuriy Andrukhovych – texts, voice
Igor Gawlikowski – guitars, keyboard, programming, field records, virtualia
Tomasz Sikora – virtualia, Theremin, keyboard, programming, field records
maot -- bass, keyboard, programming
special guest:
Peter Konradyn Tsumtor– drums, gongs
Released by: Hermetyczny Garaz,
Ukrainian version released by: МА Nash Format,
The release also includes a multimedia addition: an animation video for "Mafia" (directed by Elzbieta Birylo) and records of Andruchovych's fictional work ("Tsentralno-skhidna Reviziya") with the sound exclusively arranged by Hermetyczny Garaz and Karbido.
Вольф Мессінг
Пані Капітанова
Доктор Дутка
Старий Олійник
Ніж і ніжність
Мафія
Танго Біла Троянда
Підземне Зоо
Зміна декорацій