ialma is a group of 5 young women settled in Brussels. These singers have been gathering traditional songs of their ancestors from Galicia (Spain) for quite a few years. After they released their first a capella cd « Palabras darei », their second one « Marmuladas », where Galician melodies blend with arrangements of Belgian musicians, Ialma carries on with passing on its songs in a style of its own, varying from authentic to modern styles which create some seductive and festive modern music .

Conducted by Ad Cominotto, Ialma innovates in its third album covering a song of the « Red Hot Chili Peppers » band in the purest Galician traditions thanks to the collaboration of former female singers in this song entitled « Lévame ». An amazing initiative for a « Nova era », a new generation of the Galician tradition.

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages  

It was in Ostend in the Flemish part of Belgium that Arno Hintjens was born on May 21, 1949. His mother was into the latest things and liked Greco and rock’n’roll. As for his father, an aviator and mechanic in the aeronautic industry, he was someone who liked politics and American literature.

In the 1960’s, Arno travelled to Asia and made the ritual visit to Kathmandu. We also caught a glimpse of him singing in St. Tropez, on the Greek islands, or in Amsterdam. Undeniably turned onto music, he sang for the first time on stage during a summer music festival in Ostend in 1969. Following this he began his career in bands, among them Freckleface between ‘72 and ‘75. He played the harmonica. After a unique album which they produced themselves, Arno left the group for another, Tjens Couter. It was in fact a duo with Paul Decouter. Like Freckleface their repertoire was mostly rhythm ‘n’blues and in any case, very Anglo-Saxon.

Around 1977, Arno and Decouter formed TC Bland with Ferre Baelen and Rudy Cloet. The group had a certain fame and toured around Europe a lot. But in ‘80, joined by Serge Feys on keyboards this group became TC Matic, one of the most innovative European rock groups of the period. Quickly Decouter was replaced by Jean-Marie Aerts, who would remain one of Arno’s travelling buddies. Europeans, they were indeed that. Their tours took them regularly across Scandinavia, England, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany. During the summer of 1981, their first namesake album was released. Then, on EMI records, they recorded several albums, among them “L’Apache” in 1982. Some of their songs like “Elle adore le noir” or “Putain Putain” are still considered today as pillar compositions of that time.

In 1985, they were the opening act for the Simple Minds during their European tour. But ‘85 also marked the end of TC Matic who would forever cease to exist in ‘86.

Arno set out on a solo career with his first namesake album as early as ‘86. Recorded on a bet with the musicians from TC Matic and entirely composed by Arno, the album was primarily in English. One French song came out of the lot “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” whose only words are… “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” repeated a good forty times.

During the years spent with different groups, Arno made himself a solid name in the music scene. His talent as an artist is widely recognised. As for his wild personality full of ups and downs, it puts him among the most noticed of the rock scene. In his new solo life, Arno didn’t have much difficulty asserting his talent on the music scene.

In 1988 he released a second album “Charlatan” which was still primarily in English. We found however “Le Bon Dieu” a sublime cover of the most famous Belgian singers Jacques Brel. Two years later, set up in Paris, he released “Ratata”. From this record written almost entirely with Jean-Marie Aerts, we recall “Lonesome Zorro” and its heady melody maintained by its chorist Beverly Brown. On June 26, 1990, Arno went on the Parisian stage at the Cigale.

In ‘91, Arno works on his companion Marie-Laure Beraud’s album. At the same time on his solo route he didn’t look down upon the idea of doing some group work. So, in 1991, he found himself with Charles et les Lulus for an eponymous album. Surrounded by Roland Van Campenhout and Adriano Cominotto, he redid some blues classics by Willie Dixon, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Rufus Thomas. From the blues he went straight to Nashville to record a new album in 1993 “Idiots Savants”. After Brel, Arno borrowed “Les Filles du bord de mer” from another famous Belgian singer Adamo. This new cover confirmed his undeniable talent to give new life to old songs. This latest remains one of his flagship songs.

On February 16th, 1994 Arno stopped off at l’Elysee Montmartre in Paris.

After Charles et les Lulus, came a new group digression with Arno et les Subrovnicks in ‘94. Joined by old friends Adriano Cominotto (ex-Lulu), Rudy Cloet (ex-TC Matic) and Geoffrey Burton and Francois Garny, Arno recorded the album “Water” in the South West of France.

Still in ‘94 Arno got started in cinema soundtracks with “Personne ne m’aime” by Frenchwoman Marion Vernoux. The cinema milieu wasn’t unknown to him because in ‘78 in Belgium he wrote the music for the film “Le Concert d’un homme seul”.

After a 20-year career primarily in English, Arno released his first album fully recorded in French in 1995. Thirteen tracks co-written with Jean-Marie Aerts or Adriano Cominotto. We find the cover of Brel’s “le Bon Dieu” as well as two new songs “Elle pense à lui” by Charlélie Couture and particularly “Comme à Ostende” written by Léo Ferré and Jean-Roger Caussimon. Arno reached the top of the charts with “Les Yeux de ma mere”. The album favoured the mix of genres, from tango to jazz to blues to which Arno’s voice always gives a special texture.

December 13th, Arno played the Bataclan in Paris before starting off his tour around France and Switzerland and before he took off for the United States where he sang in New York and Austin, Texas.

The following year we found Arno in the cinema world but this time as an actor. He played the homosexual swimming instructor in “Camping Cosmos” by Belgian director Jan Bucquoy who also directed “La vie sexuelle des Belges” which attracted a lot of attention. Back on stage in October ‘96 with an evening at the Olympia on the 7th. A live album was released the following year, “Arno (en concert à la Française)” which took the best moments from his tours. An album in English was also released in ‘97 “Give me the gift” but it was only destined for the American market. Finally in ‘97, French actor Michel Piccoli gave him a role in “Alors Voilà”. Arno also wrote the soundtrack.

After Charles et les Lulus, Arno went to Charles and the White Trash Blues in 1998. Within this new occasional group, where we find guitarist Geoffrey Burton he gives us an album between blues and rock and whose covers, now part of his repertoire, go from the Kinks to Nina Simone. In ‘99 it’s again with a cover song that we find him. But this time it’s as a guest on the album by American Beverly Jo Scott, who lives in Belgium. Together they did an entertaining track which is a synthesis of “la Fille du Père Noël” by Dutronc and “Jean Genie” by Bowie.

Arno returned to the music news in August ‘99 with a new album entitled “A Poil Commercial”. Recorded in Arno’s habitual blues-rock vein, “A Poil Commercial” brought the singer’s husky “whisky-and-cigarettes” vocals even further to the fore.

The singer followed on with a tour spread over the year 2000 and including 170 concerts. And, after a last concert in Prague, the Parisian Cité de la Musique gave him carte blanche to put on a show of his own choice. Alone on stage with his usual band, he gave a very warm and tasteful ‘bal rock’, which was grandly applauded by a public of loving fans. A month later a compilation summarising his 30-year career was released.

Arno stormed back into the music news on 26 February 2002 with an album full of tender rock ballads entitled “Arno Charles Ernest” (the singer’s real name). The 15 tracks on the album, recorded in a more acoustic vein than usual, included a duet with Jane Birkin (“Elisa”) and a cover of the Rolling Stones classic “Mother’s Little Helper”. Shortly after the album release Arno kicked off a new tour with a concert at the Olympia in Paris on 8 March 2002.

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages  

When Belgian singer-songwriter Milow released his debut album, The Bigger Picture, in early 2006, few people had an idea what he was all about. Indeed, he had gained local notoriety two years prior when he became a finalist in the Rock Rally, a local battle of the bands, and his first single, “More Familiar,” had received some modest airplay from several Belgian national radio stations, but his appeal with critics and fans alike was just taking root.

Today, in his native country of Belgium, Milow is a household name. He has been rocketed to regional stardom, in part due to the success of his smash hit “You Don’t Know,” which reached number three in Belgium’s national singles chart and helped to sell over 13,500 copies of the album on which it originally appeared. Last year, Milow was presented with a TMF Award for Best New Artist, VRT Radio 2 ordained him the “Most Promising Newcomer of 2006”, and at the beginning of 2008, he won 3 Belgian Music Industry Awards (Best Music Video, Best Breakthrough, Best Song). It is not surprising that many are excited to find out what the future has in store for him.

For Milow, or Jonathan Vandenbroeck, one thing was clear from the start. His new record, Coming of Age (2008 Homerun Records), was by no means to going to be a carbon copy of his first album. “To a large extent, The Bigger Picture was a bed-sit record. This time I wanted the music to sound a little more abrasive and powerful. I’ve been playing with a band for a year and a half now, and that inspired me to explore the extremities of my musical expression a bit more. And indeed, my new songs range from quiet and acoustic to pretty loud and up-tempo.”

Some of these new songs certainly hark back to the austerity of tracks on The Bigger Picture, but new songs like “Canada” and the beefed-up first single, “Dreamers and Renegades,” show a light-heartedness that will be a surprise to those who are already fans of the first record. “My debut album sounded quite serious at the time, so I suppose it doesn’t hurt that my new songs sound comparatively toned-down,” Milow offers with a smile. “But while I was writing my new stuff I also felt the urge to dig a little deeper than I did before, to work on my songs more elaborately, and to further explore my vocal abilities. Never before had my singing hit such high and low registers as it did on this record.” Not less striking is the additional vocal presence of Nina Babet, a British singer now living in Belgium, who had previously lent her voice to Ozark Henry’s The Sailor Not the Sea. Babet and Milow sing a fetching duet on the track “Darkness Ahead and Behind.”

The recording of The Bigger Picture was supervised by Nigel Powell, who was a founding member of British band The Unbelievable Truth. For Coming of Age, Milow chose to team up with producer Jo Franken. “We had already collaborated on the single version of “You Don’t Know” and we hit it off immediately,” the singer fondly remembers. “In terms of sound and recording technique, Jo is an absolute master. I had been sending him acoustic demos I had cut in my attic room, which he would comment on. Thus, the seeds were sown for what was to become a highly satisfactory exchange of ideas. Neither of us is easily pleased, but this time we put our stakes as high as we possibly could.” Milow and Franken decided not to prepare extensively for the recording sessions and to keep their time in the studio both short and intense. As a result, everything was captured on analogue tape in a mere three days. Nearly all of the tracks on Coming of Age were performed live, with just a few overdubs.

Even more than on his first album, Milow obsessed over the quality of his lyrics on the new record. “This time I wanted to try to write songs of more epic proportions and to tackle themes that are less common in regular pop songs. I wanted to tell the type of story that, especially in the region in which I live, had not been told before. Most of these stories are the fruits of my imagination, some are entirely fictitious, but there’s not a single song on my album which is not somehow rooted in day-to-day life. I hate non-committal lyrics. It has always been my ambition as a songwriter to deal with things that are credible and real. Though it was inspired by the great American Folk storytelling tradition, Coming of Age is intended to be a uniquely Belgian artifact and a product of my own experience. All the songs on the album reflect what is happening here and now.”

The songs on the record are, consequently, infused with references to Flemish topics and events. “Stephanie,” a song which subtly recreates the sound of the E Street Band, is a tribute to a teenage girl who was murdered by her stepmother and stepbrother. Her horrific fate was in all the local papers in August 2004. Another chilling documentary song is “Herald of Free Enterprise,” inspired by the shipping disaster that took place just off the coast of Zeebrugge exactly twenty years ago.

The song Milow probably is most proud of is “The Priest.” “It’s about the choices you make when you are young, but which will have a huge impact on the rest of your life,” he explains. Milow deals with dysfunctional family ties in “House by the Creek,” which boasts an arrangement reminiscent of the soundtrack to the American television series Carnivale. On the record’s title track, Milow addresses the long and winding road to adulthood through childhood dreams, which he sings is inevitably bound to become watered down and transformed into compromise as one gets older. Still, Milow firmly states that listeners should never separate his story lines from the music. “It’s not exceptional for me to counter a dark, downbeat lyric with an upbeat tune. The picture only becomes complete when you put all the separate parts together.”

Over the course of the last year, Milow has become progressively aware of the potential power of his music. “It’s a wonderful outlet. I’m very aware of how lucky I am to be able to exorcise my demons on stage.” One question remains, however: does he take enough time to enjoy his success to its fullest extent? “I’m glad for every dream I’ve been able to realize and for every plan that has come to fruition,” Milow confirms. “But the very minute one obstacle gets crossed, I start looking out for the next one ahead. I’m afraid I can’t help it. It’s just the way I am.”

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages  

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages  

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages  

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages  

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages  

14-03-2008 om 00:00 geschreven door frontstages