KLOVER Music : Valgeir Sigurðsson

Icelandic composer Valgeir Sigurðsson release these days his last LP titeled The Architecture Of Loss. This artist who worked on Björk's Vespertine, is able to evoke in few bars a very strong and cinematic atmosphere. After Draumalandið which was a music score for a documentary in 2010, Valgeir composed The Architectrure Of Loss for a ballet. Mixing acoustic instruments such as piano, cello and violins with some electronic beats and sound effects, Valgeir compose and design an "art music" without compromise. You have to accept his statement to enter his world, after that you feel hypnotized by his dark and intimate force. I particulary like Big Reveal which with its explosion beats reminds me Reykjavìk during the new year's eve when the sky is like a Jackson Pollock canvas, a  black screen full of fireworks. TH / The Klover Post.

You can find Valgeir Sigurðsson music on his homepage :

http://valgeir.net/

Here is Valgeir's portrait by Thomas Humery produced in 2010, in Paris, inspiring the album cover (Artwork & design by Ivan Khmelevsky ).

Press : BON magazine #62

The latest BON magazine is available with californian model Mackenzie Drazan wearing Stella McCartney on the cover shot by Mel Bles. BON took the occasion of the fashion week in Stockholm to launch this new issue at the Musikaliska theater with Lady Gaga as guest star.  As usual this new issue plays with simplicity and chic classicism with some countercultural undertones, plus an interesting 4 pages index at the end. Here some samples of Mel Bles  series with style by Marcus Söder and the beautiful series titled Dry by Ben Weller and style by Julia Sarr-Jamois.

Still lives by the The Klover Post studio.

Opinion : A Peculiar Day / Gypsies in France.

Everyone knows The Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, but the Tzigane/Gypsy minority is indeed quite unknown from, let 's say, the urban and sedentary people ( Gadjé ). Gypsies have different roots with different ethnicities, speak different languages and have different believes but they all travel. It's quite difficult to get a very clear picture of them without advanced studies, by consequence, they suffer of prejudice and discrimination when we should have a more positive perception on them, and why not an inspiration... I had the chance to spend a whole day with french gypsies ( population estimated : 500 000  ) during an annual reunion somewhere in the countryside, about two hours away from Paris by a very hot summer day. The atmosphere was very vivid. Everyone seemed to be happy to meet again. Boys with boys and girls with girls, you had a sort of ballet between different spots in the camp where you could listen to a guitar or having a shy conversation. Meanwhile, parents were underneath their tents in the shadow, drinking a coffee or a fresh limonade. At night, everyone was out trying to get advantage of a cooler temperature. It was like being in amusment park with kids and young people enjoying a certain freedom and eating  kebab sandwiches. Some others,  like young adults, were attending to evangelist preaches with a more dressy looks. In the audiance you could hear some "Amen!" from time to time giving to the whole picture something a bit surrealistic... 

To come back to the Gypsies as a group,  they have been able to maintain an old way of life and an interesting tradition in our global world. For sure, they don't fit to the standardization of our times and have to face the Republic's laws which are not really adaptaed for peculiarities. Talking with them, they complain sometimes to be denied and rejected. But it's our responsabiliy to preserve the right to them to live the way they want. But to get a better harmony with the sedentary or local populations, an effort have to be made from the both parts for a better acceptance. But are the Gypsies ready to promote a bit more their culture to the external world to attract more positive attention, sympathy and inspiration? Besides the fact that they are afraid to lose some kind of identity, it's never really easy to know who is up to make a first move. In any case, the "wait and see" situation is never quite efficient.

Thanks to Louis Gouyon Matignon for the introduction and Célia Lebur  (Libération), pictures source : Thomas Humery/ The Klover Post