“Two Summers” compilation

A compilation has just been released by French label Les Disques du 7ème Ciel which includes a new unreleased song by Heligoland. “Two Summers” is available as a free download including full artwork and liner notes from Les Disques du 7ème Ciel’s website.

“Two Summers” is a collection of sixteen tracks by bands and artists who were part of the first two seasons of rooftop concerts at 7ème Ciel in Paris. The compilation includes exclusive and unreleased tracks by And Also The Trees, The Sleeping Years, Kwoon and Birch Book amongst many others.

Heligoland’s track on the compilation, ‘The Whole Way Round The Circle’, was recorded during the sessions for Heligoland’s forthcoming new album but wasn’t included in the final tracklisting. ‘The Whole Way Round The Circle’ was recorded in Paris and Rennes and was produced and mixed by Robin Guthrie.

We’re very happy to be invited to be part of “Two Summers”. As mentioned above, the complete compilation is available a free download from Les Disques du 7ème Ciel’s website in a number of audio formats: 320K MP3, FLAC and WAV.

To coincide with the release of the compilation a new website for Les Concerts du 7ème Ciel has been launched which includes a page about Heligoland’s performance.

Here are some photos from Heligoland’s acoustic concert at 7ème Ciel in September 2008.

All photos by Morgan Cugerone.

May 10th, 2010 | Posted by Steve

Heligoland debut EP re-release

Almost ten years ago, in June 2000 to be exact, Heligoland released a five song EP, the band’s debut release.

After being out of print and unavailable for the last six or seven years we’re very pleased to announce a re-release for the EP.

The EP is available now on digital platforms such as iTunes, eMusic and Amazon with a physical re-release to follow later in the year. The EP re-release features new artwork and has been (re)mastered.

Listen/Buy the EP online at: iTunes | eMusic | Amazon

Looking back…

Listening to these tracks now nearly a decade on feels a lot like flicking through a box of old photos. As memories come to mind it seems like just yesterday that we were writing and recording these songs. Tapping out these words on a cold, wintery January evening in Paris it also seems a bit like it all happened in another lifetime.

Whilst many things were a little different back then – there was no iTunes Store, Google was mostly unheard of and discmans, walkmans and four-track recorders were the norm – some things have remained much the same. If you find yourself wanting to start a band, write songs and play a few shows you look around for some people with similar tastes or interests or just people you get along really well with. Invariably someone you know, a friend or family, will know someone who plays an instrument who might be interested. There’s always musician wanted ads too.

Through a combination of most of the aforementioned approaches and connections, Karen Vogt, Cameron Gellatly, myself, and a little later Chris Wright, found ourselves playing together on weekends and the odd weeknight evening after work in the living room of a share-house in the Melbourne inner-city suburb of Windsor.

Early band photo in Gladstone St., Windsor.

The songs on Heligoland’s debut EP are amongst some of the first songs the band wrote. As we hadn’t really settled on any one particular method of writing, the songs came together in a variety of ways.

“Lo Scavo” was pieced together in a way not dissimilar to how the band often writes now – everyone jamming together until one part or section appears, some more jamming to try and find some other sections and then editing/arranging the parts until it all seems to fit together. Cameron’s guitar melody here sets the tone for the song and the EP.

“Kuro” is a song in two parts, one half taken from a song that Karen had written sometime beforehand and the other half an entirely new and completely different section that seemed to fit well as a contrast or change in mood.

“Thunderbug” was an attempt at writing in a more abstract way without obvious verses and choruses. Prior to playing in Heligoland Karen had been singing predominantly in her lower vocal register. Whilst writing “Thunderbug” the mood and feeling of the music felt like it would lend itself towards some higher vocal harmonies. We twisted Karen’s arm a bit and with some encouragement she began to try singing in a higher register. Surprised by how much she enjoyed the experience, this went on to become part of Karen’s singing style.

“Effortlessly”, a song that was always very difficult to play live for some reason, was written in a similar way to “Lo Scavo”: assembled gradually from chord sequences and parts.

“When I Look Into The Sun” nods in the direction of ambient music with its volume swells and gently shifting atmospherics. We often used to play this song to open shows.

Prior to recording the EP Heligoland played half a dozen shows in Melbourne, mostly in cafes and small venues. The most memorable of these, for all the wrong reasons, was our third concert at the Rainbow Hotel (now known as The Cornish Arms) in Brunswick. Heligoland used to play very quietly, it wasn’t unusual for housemates in adjacent rooms to sleep through the band’s rehearsals. At this particular concert Heligoland was booked to play the opening slot for two punk bands. During soundcheck the engineer was a little perplexed and not entirely happy with the lack of overall volume emanating from the stage. At the time The Rainbow Hotel was primarily a “rock” venue with lots of punk and hard rock. The problem was that we really, really didn’t want to play our songs really, really loudly. During Heligoland’s set the engineer kept pushing the PA to try attain a respectably rock ‘n roll level of volume in the room until finally something blew. Upon finishing our last song and with the other two bands forced to use the onstage foldback as the front of house for their sets we discreetly packed up and left the venue as quickly as possible.

In concert at Sub Terrain Café, Melbourne – circa 1999/2000.

As was the case with the two song demo we recorded some months prior (twenty cassette copies only) and the band’s first album “Shift These Thoughts“, the debut EP was recorded and mixed by Cameron. The recording took place at the home of a good friend in Burwood East who kindly volunteered firstly his living room for some attempts at live takes and then later on his spare room for all the overdubs and mixing. Though we’d written, rehearsed and played the songs together quite a bit by then, recording was a new experience for three quarters of the band. Cameron however was an old hand when it came to the process and spent many evenings and weekends working and fine-tuning the mixes in an early version of Cubase VST.

The packaging for the EP was a little bit unusual. Karen came up with the idea of presenting the CD inside a hand-sewn cloth envelope with a button on the front. Rather than create five hundred cloth envelopes from a single roll of fabric and one style of button it seemed a much more interesting approach to use randomly sourced pieces of fabric and buttons scrounged from unwanted garments and purchased from second-hand clothes shops. Each copy was to have a unique combination of fabric and button. At concerts this looked wonderful – a merchandise suitcase full of small fabric envelopes in all manner of colours, textures and fabrics. The only slight catch was that Karen had to sew them all together, a slightly huge undertaking. Nonetheless, concert-goers seemed to love the idea of choosing a unique design to suit their own wardrobe tastes.

If you have a copy of the original pressing of the EP in it’s cloth envelope lurking somewhere in your CD collection send us a photo and we’ll post them on the website.

Copies of the EP were sent to street press, local radio, zines and a few places overseas including some of the early indie webzines. The press reaction was generally favourable and the first song on the EP “Lo Scavo” was even played a few times on JJJ (a national radio station in Australia) by Richard Kingsmill which came as a bit of a shock. Similarly surprising but also a little puzzling, Inpress magazine (Melbourne street press) reviewed the EP on three separate occasions in it’s Singles column:

“Bathed in reverb and suffused with atmosphere, all five tracks here are superb. The carefully-arranged soft guitar backdrops embrace all the best things about Talk Talk, late-night Radiohead and much of the 4AD back catalogue, while strong, purposeful songs float on top.”
- Anthony Horan

“As smooth and haunting as the Cowboy Junkies but far too good to be called derivative are Heligoland. Their self-titled EP comes in a beautifully made cloth envelope and is very difficult to remove from your CD player once inserted.”
-Fred E. Gostein

“This latest EP proves that not only can the band evoke gorgeous sound, they are also proficient songwriters. The opening track Lo Scavo, has the kind of guitar hook that you don’t even feel entering your skin – but just try and remove it once embedded!”
- Martin Jones

Of the five songs on the EP it seemed to be the opening track “Lo Scavo” that people were always commenting on so we decided to make a video for the song. A local filmmaker, Barney Whelan, was recruited for the project and a budget of $300 (or was it $200?) agreed upon. The band’s idea for the video was: scenery. There were to be no appearances by any band members, no story, no narrative, just scenery. A bit of gentle persuasion on the part of the director ensued and a vague storyline (of sorts) was formulated.

Featuring our friend Woody and filmed in the back streets of Windsor and at various locations on the Mornington peninsula, here is the “Lo Scavo” video:

‘Lo Scavo’ – Heligoland from Heligoland on Vimeo.

A little later the EP was followed by two 7″ releases, then a debut album “Shift These Thoughts“, and after that a second album “A Street Between Us“. Both “Shift These Thoughts” and “A Street Between Us” are now available again on digital platforms with additional mastering. Physical re-releases of both albums will follow in the near future.

Listen/buy “Shift These Thoughts” online at: iTunes | Amazon

Listen/buy “A Street Between Us” online at: iTunes | Amazon

Our thanks to Robin, Flo and soleil après minuit for their help with the re-release.

Band and concert photos by Yani Perotti. EP artwork/photography by fact244.

Right now we’re preparing for the release of Heligoland’s third album. More news on that coming very soon…

February 23rd, 2010 | Posted by Steve

Twelve Colours N°2 next week in Paris

Heligoland will be playing next Wednesday night at Espace B in Paris for Twelve Colours N°2. Joining us for the concert will be our good friends Teamforest from Dortmund and Colin Johnco & Frédéric D. Oberland. Doors at 20h00, 5 € entry.

A fortnight ago Heligoland played at MO’FORUM as part of Festival MO’FO 2010 at Mains d’œuvres in Paris. Our thanks to Antti Mäkinen who joined us on drums for the concert at very short notice. Antti will be playing with us again at Espace B next week.

Photo by Anne-Hélène Lebrun / frall-photo.com

February 12th, 2010 | Posted by Steve

Final show for 2009 and acoustic video

Heligoland’s final (we think!) show for 2009 will be next Tuesday, December 22 at l’International in Paris for We Are The Lions #33. Doors open at 19h45 with Heligoland playing third on the bill later in the evening.

Last week Karen, Dave and Stéphane played a short acoustic set at the launch party for the release of the second album by Paris band Kwoon. Here is a video from the concert of the song ‘What was it worth?’ from Heligoland’s first album ‘Shift these thoughts‘. The concert took place in a small apartment with about forty people crammed in to the lounge room to see acoustic performances by Heligoland and Kwoon. Thanks to Drou for the video and thanks to Kwoon for inviting us to play!

December 17th, 2009 | Posted by Steve

London shows

We’re once again back in Paris after a very short but eventful visit to London for our first ever UK shows. On Friday night we had the great pleasure to play another concert with Trespassers William on the final night of their UK tour at the Luminaire for Club AC30. The following morning we were up bright and early for a mid-morning soundcheck at the Union Chapel in Islington for a midday concert as part of the Daylight Music series of shows. The Union Chapel is an amazing venue and if you ever have the chance to go to a concert or play a show there, we highly recommend it!

Our thanks to everyone who came along to the concerts, Robin and Duncan from AC30, Ben from Daylight Music and to The Zephyrs and Monroe Transfer for loaning us their backline at the shows.

Heligoland’s next show will be on December 22 in Paris at l’International.

Videos and tour diaries from our September tour coming soon…

November 9th, 2009 | Posted by Steve

UK/London shows this week

Heligoland will travelling to London in the next few days to play our first ever shows in the UK.

Friday 6 November, 2009
Club AC30
Trespassers William (US), The Zephyrs, Heligoland
The Luminaire
311 Kilburn High Road
London, NW6 7JR, UK

Saturday 7 November, 2009
Daylight Music @ Union Chapel
Compton Terrace, Islington, N1 2UN, London (UK)
Monroe Transfer, Sam Sallon, Heligoland

November 4th, 2009 | Posted by Steve

Back from tour

We’re now back in Paris after our longest tour to date: three weeks of shows in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland. The return trip to Paris, a combination of a twenty six hour ferry trip from Helsinki to Rostock, driving non-stop through the night from Rostock to Cologne and then a train back to Paris was a little tiring to say the least, but everyone is slowly recovering ahead of our concert this coming sunday in Paris as part of Festival Out Of The Blue.

Our thanks to everyone who came along to the concerts and everyone who helped with the organisation for the tour.

Tour blog, photos and video coming soon…

October 8th, 2009 | Posted by Steve

September 2009 Tour

Heligoland’s September 2009 tour begins on Sunday with a concert at Astra-Stube in Hamburg.

Over the next few weeks the band will be playing shows in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland.

All the details of the dates, concerts and venues can be found on the concerts page.

We’ve just added a last-minute show in Vilnius on Sunday September 19 at Muse Club.

Hope to see you on the road!

September 11th, 2009 | Posted by Steve

Interview – Dans le mur… de son !

A new interview with Karen and Steve has been published online this week by French webzine Dans le mur… de son !

Heligoland interview [FR]

Merci Lyle et Dans le mur… de son !

(Interview transcript in English)

September 3rd, 2009 | Posted by Steve

Two shows in Paris this week

Heligoland will be playing two very different shows in Paris in the next few days.

On Wednesday night we’ll be playing at Glazart with FareWell Poetry and Jason Edwards. Doors at 7pm, free entry, Heligoland onstage at 9pm.

This concert is a special preview show for the Out Of The Blue Festival which we’ll be playing at in September. The festival runs for three days and has an amazing lineup. Full details on the Out Of The Blue MySpace.

On Saturday night Heligoland will be playing at Out Of The Blue Acoustic Session No1 at Café de Paris in Menilmontant supporting Damon&Naomi. Doors at 8pm, 5€ entry.

As with the other recent Heligoland acoustic concerts, this will be another trio show comprising Karen (vocals), Dave (acoustic guitar) and Stéphane (acoustic guitar). The Heligoland acoustic shows of late have featured numerous tracks from the Heligoland back catalogue, so expect a very different setlist to Wednesday night’s full band/electric concert.

August 31st, 2009 | Posted by Steve

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