Beschreibung

Die junge anglo-amerikanisch-deutsche Gruppe "Guidebooks" ist am Donnerstag, den 13.11. mit ihrem frischen Organic-Electronica-Sound zu Gast im Café Haag.

Wer sich einen Eindruck von ihrem Sound machen möchte, kann dies hier tun:

http://guidebooks.bandcamp.com/track/send-your-love-right-up

The art of travel writing is not a novel approach for pan-European project Guidebooks.

The initial lineup of the band - featuring Ruth and Brookln Dekker from Nottingham/Chicago acoustic duo Rue Royale and Tele drummer Stefan Wittich – began a painstaking process of collecting sounds, often while on the road. Shards of glitched noise, synth and sub-bass burblings were stitched into a warm sonic rug, cut with roomy live beats, free-falling Tremolo guitars and bold vocal melodies.

Guidebooks soon developed an abstract but innovative method of collaboration- finding textures, samples and suggestions of music in sounds that they variously collected whilst playing and touring in different countries and different spaces & times. Playing live now as a three piece, the band established a playful, scrap book type mentality and a sonic home for the fledging tunes.

Cut to 2013 and the work of Guidebooks was noticed by Soundcloud who awarded them a Fellowship and helped the band to gather samples from their huge worldwide community. Sounds poured in from many unlikely places and sources and the 2nd EP “From where I'm standing” began to take shape. Samples submitted were as diverse as birdsong from South America, fuzzy recordings of choir rehearsals from England and canal construction noise from Malaysia. It proved an overwhelming but ultimately inspiring backdrop for the group's songwriting and the pieces became an ode to perspective and the ability of a single sound to take a listener to somewhere far away. Guidebooks played lyrically with themes of distance, separation and longing over this patchwork of sonic polaroids. Soundcloud proclaimed it a huge success with the band amassing almost 15,000 Soundcloud followers and coining the phrase “being in a band with everyone”. The Soundcloud page for the project features “making-of” tracks which show exactly how the sounds were added together to create the finished tracks and shows afresh the Guidebooks' determination to rethink the often purely promotional nature of the internet for bands and writers.

Some have seen an obvious comparison with boundary-breakers such as Sufjan Stevens but electronic pioneers Mount Kimbie and Shigeto are also pins in the map. Likewise, classic free spirits Dylan and Van Morrison (who’s name checked in the song “Reach Out”) are cited alongside influences.
Paul says: “We’ve been hugely inspired by the forward-thinking nature of current electronic music. With Guidebooks we’re bringing our guitar-band background to the table and letting the likes of Mount Kimbie inspire us into new shapes – without the fear of making mistakes or trying to play to preconceived rules.” We're like the folk writers who left our guitars on the bus and had to make music with new electronic tools. We feel stretched, but very excited and inspired.

As the touring schedule of Rue Royale grew more demanding, Ruth and Brookln stepped away from playing live with Guidebooks in early 2014. Berlin based singer and writer Hannah Permanetter (Dear Henry Bliss) jumped on board to fill their shoes and the band began a new and industrious phase preparing for live shows.

With new recordings already begun and touring plans afoot, 2014 looks set to be an exciting year for the band.

Kino Atelier / Café Haag

Am Haagtor 1
72070 Tübingen

Lageplan