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!