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Group photo at the end of busy, tiring but extremely buzzing and creative week!

Welsh and Sorbian songwriting cross-collaboration in action.

 

 

What an amazing week in Cottbus, and such a great creative experience 🥰

 

Thanks so much to

WALES ARTS INTERNATIONAL AND KOLLEKTIW WAKUUM FOR THEIR SUPPORT IN MAKING THIS HAPPEN!

 

Last night we finished the week off with a showcase at @chekov_cottbus as the sunset 🌅

During the week we’ve produced/recorded 15 songs which is more than any of us could imagine! On the second slide on this instagram post you can hear the hilarious Welsh-Sorbian anthem which our Sorbian collaborators wrote to the tune of Calon Lân 🤣 This was the silliest creation of the week!

 

We also have a (good humored) hip-hop diss track between the upper and lower Sorbian languages featuring Sophia Ida Hex and Stoi; a Sorbian folk-dance number with translated Welsh lyrics about pigs; 19th century Sorbian melodies combined with breakbeats (with feminist lyrics/vocals by @ida__bux @efasupertramp and @izrabes to come!); angry Sorbian poetry by @anneliecemjerec about the hypocracy of church goers (the church has a lot of influence in the Sorbian region); an experimental anti-right wing hip hop song by @jectoplastic (neo-nazis are also strong in this area, and we were warned to keep window shutters down when not in the building in case of attacks); a Welsh-language songs laughing at ‘precious’ classist traditions; loads of incredible violin parts by the skilled Geigerzähler (one featuring Sorbian vocals by @rasenderenate)….. the list goes on!

 

It was an amazing week and such a great joy to make new friends and discuss our parallel frustrations between wanting to use and create through our minority languages while also putting forward a progressive vision for a queer feminist future ✨💘 Thank you so much to everyone who participated!! We still have lots of post-production to do, and unfortunaetly the amazing @ceryshafana never made it out to Germany to meet us 💔😷but she is planning to contribute when we’re back in the UK! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿⚡️ Izzy Rabey is also busy conguring up some Welsh-language rap verses for us. Big thanks to @hellastoletzki for filming footage for a documentary about the project during the week and doing all the organising behind the scenes, and of course to our producer @nick.ronin who worked every day 12+ hours in the dark cave (make-shift studio) 

 

Now to work on the post-production and plan our mini tour of the Sorbian region in the Autumn! We would also love to bring the Sorbian artists over to Wales to do a similar project here…. I hope we can find some funding!

 

Day 4

On Thursday morning I made a vegan fry-up for our crew, with some baked beans I brought over – everyone should experience a cooked breakfast of course, and it’s a solid way to start the day! Around 10:30 the band Serbska Reja turned up, they are a folk-band from this region who play sessions and Gregor one of the band members had been helping us orgainse our time here during our zoom sessions. The band consisted of an accordion, double bass, Swedish nyckelharpa and a nylon stringed guitar. Gregor is also the music editor of the Lower Sorbian radio programme of national broadcaster RBB so interviewed some of us about the project during his day with us, as he was promoting the project and gig on Saturday.

 

Nick isn’t a studio engineer by trade, so was looking forward to the challenge of recording a band – they decided they wanted to record as a live band (not as separate tracks) and began with a Sorbian song about piglets. The track had a great energy and some powerful rhythms – they only took three takes before deciding on one. Then I printed them out the music sheets for ‘Calon Lan’ to see if they could make a rendition of it with their instruments, they performed it quickly and within a few takes again, and Paul decided he would write Sorbian lyrics with Sophia’s help and they created a cheesy and ridiculous anthem about the friendship between Sorbs and the Welsh (saying we had new traditions created every breakfast time, and that the friendship was 10,000 years old! Very silly!). Then the double bass player added some jams to the song I made on the first day, Paul got the accordion player to add something on to one of his tracks, and Nick got the nyckelharpa and accordion added onto one of his dark gothy song sketches. They were playing a children’s song in a minor key, and it sounded DARK and AWESOME! They were such competent musicians and it was great to have them on board and open to creating stuff in our experimental space. Towards the end of the afternoon they had to leave. The Sorbs were busy practicing the new ‘Welsh/Sorbian anthem’ in the garden while the people from the house project we’ve been working in made a BBQ for us all. It was nice to meet the people running the space, and get to know how they organised things.

Meanwhile another member of Kollectiwwakuum called Anneli recorded a poem she had written about people who go to church, and fight for the front pew but then go home and expect their wives to have cooked everything, and cursing refugees and calling them thieves. It sounded extremely passionate and beautiful despite the fact I couldn’t understand it. Then on Friday during our final day of recording Paul has added some disharmonic violin to it and Anneli looked like she was almost in tears at hearing her work brought to life by his dramatic violin part which builds up and makes the hairs on your neck stand up. We still had more stuff we wanted to record, but by 11pm decided we were too tired and called it a day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 5

Our final day of recording – we are all definetly starting to feel tired/run-down, but also pleased with how well we have jelled together during the week and how much different materials we’ve produced. We had a relatively chilled morning, I worked on translating the song about pigs from Sorbian to Welsh (via German and English!) and began practicing singing it along to the energetic number of Sorbska Roja.

In the early afternoon Pitko turned up – he is an older Sorbian folk singer-songwriter who also has some Welsh in his vocabulary and has visited the Eisteddfod 3 times, and has some friends/connections with Wales. He also speaks both lower and upper Sorbian which is quite rare – he was a really interesting person to talk to about Sorbian history, as he currently works in the Sorbian Library after 35 years as professional musician (brought to an end by the pandemic!). He had also got a professor from Leipzig university to translate his lyrics into English and Welsh, which was super nice. Nick recorded him performing his song, and he was soon off again – it seemed like he had some place to be, and it was a great experience to meet him even if we weren’t able to create something cross-cultural together, I really appreaciated that he’d translated his lyrics into Welsh! After he left and Paul had recorded the beautiful violin for Anneli’s poem; I recorded the Welsh vocals for the pig song (Góń te swin je domoj) which was fun as it started out sweet and then got a bit pirate-y/balkany vibes! In the original song there is a lyric that says ‘I like to dance German, but I prefer dancing Sorbian much more’ and I changed it into a mini-diss (as a joke of course) to the Sorbs, so now it says ‘I like dancing Sorbian, but I like Welsh dancing much more’! It’s so niche and ridiculous, like many of the things we have created this week – it’s been fun to do these bizzare combinations of Welsh and Sorbian culture!

Meanwhile in the background Hella from Kollektiwwakuum has been continuing to film her documentary and interviewing the participants – she has an ambitious project in front of her as she has been interviewing people in Welsh, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, German and English! I am really looking forward to seeing how the documentary turns out and I really appreciate the multilingual approach.

 

For dinner Paul, Anneli and Stefan cooked another Sorbian feast up – and they bought Nick a steak to show how appreaciated it was that he had been working such long days during our sessions. Most of us have had time to relax and hang out, but Nick has been working flat-out in the make-shift studio working on producing and recording the ‘album’ of collaborations we’ve created.

After dinner the Sorbian choir (Paul, Stefan, Jakub, Anneli, Maja, Sophia and Hella) came together ready to sing the new Welsh/Sorbian anthem – they ropped me in at the last minute as a background singer and we recorded the anthem to the tune of the hymn calon lan five times while moving around the room to create a choir effect. It really worked as a technique and we all cracked up when we heard it at the end; it was very very silly and it’s hilarious that everyone is walking around the space humming calon lan now!

 

A producer and rapper called Jakub Gruhl had also arrived early in the afternoon, Nick had played him some of the more hip-hop style tracks we’d created this week and gave him some options of what he could remix and rap over. He spent the afternoon writing lyrics and messing about with stems Nick had given him and later in the evening recorded vocals. His lyrics were against the right-wing German nazis in Sorbian areas, who have no concept of their history. Jakub’s vocals were the final recordings we would be doing while in Cottbus (although we still have more to do in Wales/as online collaborations which we haven’t managed to fit into this week). We opened a bottle of sekt (German fizzy wine) to celebrate the end of the recording, and listened back to what we had done throughout the day – such a great variation of stuff and styles. I think we are all extremely pleased with what we have managed to achieve this week.

 

 

 

 

Day 3
I woke up and went for another run along the river spree through the forest, I feel it’s a really great way to start the day fresh! We had another breakfast meeting and planned the day.

Firstly, I recorded a vocal part for one of the beats Nick had made which was in 5/4 timing based on some old Welsh folk rhythms he’d researched. I wanted a song which featured English, Welsh, Sorbian and German on it, so just used one line from the call that Rebecca Rioters used to use in a theatrical call to their ‘mother’ before destroying the toll gates.

Rebecca: “Wait! It feels like a big gate put across the road to stop your old mother.”
Rioters: “We will break it down, mother. Nothing stands in your way.”

I recorded it in Welsh and English, then Maja and Sophia added a Sorbian and German version later that evening. This is a track I plan to produce further with Nick when we get home, and we can mess about with it more once this week is up. I liked that it’s a nod to a creative form of protesting, as well as a powerful statement. I hope I can make something cool with the four languages on, but as we are so busy here I’m planning to finish that one back in the UK.

After this Sophia (Ida Bux) put a Sorbian rap down on one of Nick’s beats, the lyrics were about rumours and gossip within the Sorbian world (something anyone from a Welsh village can also relate to, I’m sure!). Later in the afternoon Erik Schiesko arrived and performed one of his original piano pieces, Paul Geigerzähler played violin on it and Nick used the acoustics of the room and recorded the little interlude for our ‘album’, it has a nice bit of dramatic feel. I began to feel that we should have brought more Welsh musicians with us, as the Sorbian side was definitely coming in stronger on the songs, but then I realised that was probably natural as we were in their region, and we were just being spoilt by all the talented Sorbs that were keen to be involved (it would have costs us thousands of £££ extra to bring a larger group with us, and we were unlucky that Cerys didn’t make it due to covid). I think we can add more Welsh artists later on, as we have strong foundations made during this week – where there are gaps in songs, we can invite a few more people from their home-studios maybe, that is the beauty of the remote working we have become used to. Everyone who has been involved in the project from the Sorbian side is so excited, and I really feel that by getting everybody here in one space we have forged special connections even between folk musicians and hip-hop artists for example.

I cooked us a big curry for dinner (how else could one represent British food, haha) and everyone was super happy to be well fed. After dinner Maja from Kollectiwwakuum recorded Sorbian lyrics for one of Paul’s original songs (which he wrote in German) which we recorded violin for on the previous night. She did it quickly, then after a few other small bits, Sophia and Stoi got onto recording their upper and lower Sorbian rap battle! We all sat down to have a listen to what had been created during the day – 4.5 tunes we reckoned! We have been hugely productive and although we aren’t sure how it will all be tied together, it is such a great experience to make these connections and just be in a creative collaborative space.

On Sunday afternoon we drove from Berlin to Chóśebuz/Cottbus, after emptying the van of equipment (we have heard of way too many bands being robbed blind while touring!) Paul Geigerzähler walked us over to a lower Sorbian Easter market which was happening. Amongst stalls with traditional Sorbian crafts were Kollektiwwakum with a stall championing the subcultural products of Sorbian culture – such as fanzines, vinyls and DIY music videos. It was great to meet more of the collective and to see what they have been creating and supporting and it was cool to watch a queer feminist rap video, right next to a stall showcasing a spinning wheel for wool and traditional dresses. We were invited to take a schnapps that the collective had created, it was a strange mix of spirits made from corn, cherry syrup and linseed oil. At the market we also met up with Sophia, who is a producer under the name Ida Bux, and was part of the female Sorbian hip-hop crew Kolektiw Klanki. Some of us headed back to the housing project who’s space Kollektiwwakum had organised our residency at. We hung some black cloth up to dampen the sound in the room, and set up some equipment before calling it a day. One of the members of the house asked us to keep the window shutters down when we are not in the space, as they’ve been attacked by neo-nazis in the past – a stark reminder of the reality of where we are working and staying.

Monday (Day 1 of residency)

In the morning I went for a run along the river Spree, before coming back to the house for a breakfast meeting. Along with fresh bread and numerous types of pickles, we discussed some ideas for the day – today making music was Sophia, Paul, Nick and Efa. Hella from KollektiwWakum was busy making phone calls trying to find a harp we might be able to hire if Cerys made it over, planning her documentary and co-ordinating other musicians who would be visiting during the week. She has created a big white board calendar so we are aware who is coming each day, so we are able to prepare. The day started with Nick and Sophia (who we have named ‘Team Nerd’) setting up downstairs in the make-shift studio, with their technical set-ups. Sophia uses hardware/synths, and Nick is more of an expert on Ableton – they managed to link-up their set-ups but in the end decided to work separately for the afternoon because Nick was creating loops of Paul’s recordings of traditional Sorbian songs which Sophia said she couldn’t connect with, so she moved her set-up upstairs and made some beats using her hardware, in preparation for some rappers who would be visiting us in the next days.

Meanwhile Paul went to the forest to practice violin (like a true master, he practices for a few hours a day) and I decided to go and write a Welsh-language song in another room. My lyrics ended up taking the piss out of ‘tradition’ in some form of another, probably partly in response to Sophia’s reaction to Sorbian traditional melodies and also as a nod to the article Cerys wrote about her experiences in the Welsh Folk scene (and the resulting social media fallout) for the amazing book Welsh (Plural) Essays on the Future of Wales. I recorded a guitar loop, Nick added a drum-pattern and a bass synth (until someone can play a real double-bass onto it later in the week), then I added the vocals and sampled some of Pop Negatif Wastad’s cover of Big Black’s Kerosene. I questioned whether creating a song with Nick was a ‘waste of time’ as we could do this back in the UK, but I realised it was timely, spontaneous, instant and I know I’d never create a song this quickly at home! In the afternoon Nick also recorded Paul messing-up the Sorbian melodies and being more weird and experimental with them.

For dinner Paul made us mlince (Sorbian pancakes) and we discussed how we felt the day went, then listened to what we had produced during our first day which amounted to 3 pretty solid ideas for songs which still have space for more to be added/perfected. There was a beat that Sophia had produced on her hardware, a Sorbian-melody Paul had recited which Nick had added some beats onto on Ableton, and the Welsh-language guitar-based song that I made. We discussed what more we felt we could add to these three drafts, and then at around 11pm after a few more violin recordings decided we would call it a day as we’d been working for almost 13 hours!

 

As we were packing the final bits of our equipment, I got a message from Cerys saying she had taken a precautionary lateral flow test and it had come up positive! I had been expecting that covid would mess up our trip somehow but as Cerys had already had covid a few weeks ago she was the one I least expected to catch it! Nonetheless we knew we had to carry on with the trip and consider alternative ways of working with Cerys if she was unable to fly out later in the week. We tried to go and pick her harp up from her university campus but ended up going ‘round in circles with their security with the music tech office closed!! Ahhh, anyway we took a deep breath and headed towards the Chunnel.

Nick and I drove to Berlin with a van full of recording and music equipment, we arrived to where Paul Geigerzähler lives in a big housing collective. We were going to warm-up to our week of music making in the Sorbian region, by playing a small gig in an underground bar in one of Berlin’s old squats. There Paul and I performed our solo music, and we also did Chwalaw’s second ever live performance which went down really well. Through the gig we fundraised 350 euros for Belarus ABC, a group that support Belarussian political prisoners. Some members of Kollective Wakum who are supporting and helping to facilitate our Sorbian/Welsh came to the gig (and also designed the poster!).

 

In the run up to our trip to the Sorbian region of Germany, we were able to meet up with Geigerzähler in London, thanks to a booking for Chwalaw at CRUX AV night which champions new underground electronic music. Geigerzähler was flown into London thanks to Crux and he was able to come a couple of days early so we could rehearse for the gig. The gig went really well, and we had live visuals created during the set, created by Amousement based on the Welsh-language subjects of my songs. Here is a video with snipets of our songs for the gig.

Chydig o footage o gig cyntaf @Chwalaw_Music nos Sadwrn dwythaf ✨ Featuring @PGeigerzaehler on 🎻 Production by Nick Ronin, live visuals (based on my Welsh lyrics) by Amousement! Lyrics/vocals by me 🎤 pic.twitter.com/Q5Iq5XObWg

— Efa Supertramp (@Efa_Twm) April 21, 2022

Having the chance to meet up a week before we travelled to Germany was great – we were able to talk about our visions for the residency, and Nick even managed to record Paul playing 13 traditional Sorbian songs from an old song book his grandmother gave him.