Belka & Strelka by Brueder Selke

The East Berlin-born, Potsdam-based, polyinstrumental composer duo Brueder Selke, with Sebastian Selke on cello and Daniel Selke on piano, presents their new album and concert film BELKA & STRELKA. It is named after the two space dogs who for a day circled the Earth on Sputnik 5 on 19 August 1960. Unlike Laika who rode aboard the Sputnik 2 in 1957, Belka and Strelka returned to Earth safe and sound. Together with the mice, rats, and flies who were also on board, they were the first animals to survive a space flight in Earth’s orbit.

Musically, the album is based on their concert at Jazzclub Tonne in Dresden ending of 2022. On the one hand, it was one of the rare performances, with their most extensive live set to date, shortly before the end of the corona pandemic, and on the other hand, it was, after the brothers’ performance at Spectaculare in Palác Akropolis in Prague (which was also recorded) and as the planned follow-up and response to that concert, an opportunity for a more intimate concert among like-minded people.

In the concert, alongside Sebastian’s cello from Klingenthal, a Fender Rhodes Mark II was used for the first time, together with electronic instruments from VERMONA as well as an expansive palette of experimental sound generators from SOMA-Laboratory. So it was in this setup dominated by electronic instruments that the only acoustic instrument was the cello, which was likewise extensively modified with Sebastian’s well-known chain of effects using filter, ping-pong, and sequencer.

The pieces are partly familiar compositions that have been further developed and partly new works that meticulously sound out the potential of the acoustic as well as the additional electronic components. All are based on fragmentary compositions that only through the mutual action and reaction in their interplay – through “listening to each other” – become complex but recognisable unities. They were recorded directly from the stage with high-end field recording equipment and several cameras. In the brothers’ Klingenthal Studio, the pieces for the album were then selected and put together using their keen sense of the particular atmosphere in that concert.

The creative, interlocking aspects in the approach of the Selke brothers follow a central idea to which both stay deeply committed: the search for a harmony between musical profession and human existence – transported by a constant balance of the specific elements of their work. In the process, their reductive approach is applied to a contemporary aesthetic based on their personal experiences and handling of the restrictions on daily life in former, socialist East Germany.

As CEEYS, the two brothers have released six albums – three duologies – that tell of episodes from their childhood in the former GDR, which together with the acoustic HAUSMUSIK as well as the corresponding rework album MUSIKHAUS leads to a current positioning, classification, and at the same time also perspective of their work today.

So, just as the two stray dogs Belka and Strelka once roamed the dirty courtyards and rancid back alleys of Moscow, were found, raised up, and prepared for the weightlessness of space, and in the end gave the encouraging impetus for manned spaceflight, and also just as three years later Strelka’s daughter Pushinka was given as a present by the head of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, to the family of John F. Kennedy and went down in history as a reconciliatory gesture between East and West, so the album and concert film BELKA & STRELKA tries longingly and at the same time weightlessly to confront and finally surmount the subject of division and separation.

After the release of their hybrid album duology THE GRUNEWALD CHURCH SESSION as CEEYS beginning of 2022 and MARIENBORN as Brueder Selke ending of 2022, which in their line-up and production process can be seen as a turning point in the work of the collaborative duo, the two long-term musical partners present for the first time pieces in an album and concert film format – though it is now their second time using their real names and, at the same time, the first time as a pure live recording.

BELKA & STRELKA is the second project to be recorded on a live stage. The record was given into the gifted hands of Edward Sikorski, who mixed the material at his Studio B in Dresden, of Antonio Pulli who re-recorded the album on tape at Leiter Studio and of Chihei Hatakeyama, who mastered the record at his boutique WPM studio in Tokyo.



About the Artist:
The polyinstrumental composer duo Brueder Selke, with Sebastian Selke on cello and Daniel Selke on piano, combines a long-standing passion for music and an impressive résumé under the pseudonym CEEYS.

Organically and in short time, they have won over a dedicated fan base, and “luminaries” such as Mary Anne Hobbs speak of “an extraordinary piece of music”, just as The Guardian attests to the double LP HAUSMUSIK as having a “horror-movie intensity”.

After four albums that as two duologies capture their past in the former, socialist GDR, a third two-parter HAUSMUSIK & MUSIKHAUS followed, bringing them into the present, during which time both artists – also affected since 2020 by the impact of the pandemic – had already begun to compose under their real names Brueder Selke.

Following closely the style of their studio album MARIENBORN, the album and concert film BELKA & STRELKA mark a refined development of their musical approach with an almost unabridged performance with a large setup using acoustic and electronic instruments.

Alongside their releases, Brueder Selke host in Potsdam the highly respected Q3AMBIENTFEST, a bespoke happening for contemporary music, and are already planning for the coming year 2024 the eighth iteration.

“This second album under our real name Brueder Selke and the corresponding concert film underline our deeply internalised joy in experimentation. This time we are not only searching for the hidden sounds from Daniel’s piano and Sebastian’s curiosity for unconventional ways to play the cello. Here we are searching for – and always with a wink and a smile – our identity in relation to each other in a concert setting – and at the same time in partnership with our audience.” – Sebastian & Daniel, Brueder Selke

composer & curator

bruederselke.com
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