Despite major social and musical changes, the spirit of Germany's biggest hippie festival has remained constant for fifty years. But how did it all start? What has changed? What are the constants? And what will be on the agenda for the big anniversary in 2018? Together with organizer Gunther Lorz we trace the historical cornerstones of the meeting of old and young flower children.
With The Sea Within, Roine Stolt has gathered a veritable all-star ensemble - with members of The Flower Kings, Pain Of Salvation and The Aristocrats. Names like Daniel Gildenlöw, Marco Minnemann or Jonas Reingold raise the expectations of fans of progressive music. The band initiator is aware of this and therefore tries to keep the ball flat. What would not be necessary at all, because the self-titled debut is a stylistically versatile double album between prog, art pop, jazz rock and film music, in which the joy of the participants is clearly noticeable.
Mid-June. Getting an interview appointment with Mariusz Duda is currently extremely difficult. Since March, Riverside have been at Studio Serakos in Warsaw to work on their seventh album "Waste7and", the first without guitarist Piotr Grudziński, who died in early 2016. The band also has to prepare for three summer festivals.
Josh Tillman doesn't give interviews about his new album "God's Favorite Costumer". Why, he must have thought, after all he threw himself into the media hustle and bustle for the not even one year old predecessor "Pure Comedy" without regard to losses. Suddenly his fictional character Father John Misty was on everyone's lips, not only the music press, but also the feuilletons became aware of the singer-songwriter. And he had also created a really wonderful album, which reminded of the West Coast Pop of the 70s, of brooding, shy songwriters like James Taylor or Jackson Browne.
The word jazz doesn't mean much to Kamasi Washington. It's just a word. With his music he wants to express what words are not enough for. One cannot deny him a certain inclination towards gigantism, because Kamasi Washington wants nothing less than to change the world. But is that possible? For this he reaches for the stars and the earth's core at the same time.
Anyone who makes a phone call to England these days will soon be talking about the Football World Cup. Before we can ask Riversea keyboarder Brendan Eyre about the new album of the band "The Tide", he holes the German interviewer. As a fan of Manchester City he could not understand that Joachim Löw had not taken City striker Leroy Sané with him to Russia: "Is that something personal? The answer (strong competition on his position) doesn't really convince Eyre. But no matter. We actually want to talk about music!
