The Tour de France rode out on Friday, kicking off the 2022 edition in Copenhagen (the furthest north le Tour has ever been). It started with a time trial and the Bahrain Victorious team being raided by the police. Today is a day off for the riders as the teams transfer from Denmark to France for the racing to pick up again tomorrow as they head towards the Alps. To celebrate the Tour coming to Denmark, Copenhagen label Music For Dreams released a four track EP of covers by their artists of some of Kraftwerk's Tour de France songs. Charlotte and Reinhard, both of Rheinzand, covered the eight minute long Vitamin in a pleasingly non- Kraftwerk style, Reinhard's violin taking the place of the keyboard melodies.
The EP also has covers of the title track by Danish duo Subneisa (where Kraftwerk's synth melody is replaced, brilliantly, by a trumpet)- not a long song but it will brighten up your Monday. You can buy the EP here.
Back in 2003 Kraftwerk updated their 1983 single and expanded it out into a full album, timed to come out on the hundredth anniversary of the first Tour de France. Fittingly, for a bunch of perfectionists, the album didn't appear until August so missed the race itself. It was their first album since Electric Cafe seventeen years earlier and while it's a very good album, it also shows just how Kraftwerk have been treading water and repeating themselves since the mid- 80s. But then, if you've already invented electronic pop (and had a big hand in the foundation of hip hop and techno too) it's fair enough really.
A grief update if you'll bear with me. Things don't get any easier but they do change- people talk about stages of grief/ bereavement and that seems to be very much the case. Last week we saw a lot of people, friends and family, some of whom we haven't seen since Isaac's funeral just before Christmas. With some of them it was the main thing we talked about, with others it was in and out of conversation and with others it was there, hanging around in the air between us. All of this is fine, sometimes you want to talk about it and other people want to or are comfortable taking about it, and other times you want to talk about other things. It never goes away- and it never will- but you do seem to start to reach a point where it veers between being still crushing, physically painful and unbelievably raw and then times when it can be something else.
We've both had face- to- face appointments with a counsellor this week with the promise of counselling, eight sessions, one a week over eight weeks, starting soon. This seems to be the right time, an opportunity to unload some of this on someone neutral and trained and maybe try to unpick some parts of it and to go through things again. My physical symptoms are still present- tinnitus, jaw clenching and teeth grinding, some unpleasant flashbacks occasionally- but do seem to have lessened slightly.
We've both dreamt about Isaac recently, the first time either of us has since he died (or at least the first time we're aware that we've dreamt about him). It's very unsettling. I woke up suddenly in the early hours, hyper aware that I'd been talking to him in my dream (he was at college in the dream and I was with him there for a reason I can't remember) and I was very disturbed by it, lying awake with the dawning realisation it hadn't happened. In my dream, briefly, he was still alive. Lou dreamt about him a few nights later. In her dream he was crossing the road outside our house in the rain, wearing his green hooded coat, carrying a cream cheese sandwich wrapped in tin foil which he dropped. He was walking with purpose, like he was going to meet somebody. She was then in the car, going to pick him up but he wasn't there, which when she told me made me cry.
At the session on Tuesday with the counsellor we briefly talked about other people and their reactions. If occasionally other people don't always get it right or want to avoid us, it's to be expected. They don't know what to say or don't want to upset you. It's frightening for people too. 'You are living through their worst nightmare' she said.
This song came out recently from the Belgian duo Reinhard Vanbergen and Charlotte Caluwaerts, a single ahead of an album in June. It has a very dreamlike quality- soft, wobbling synth sounds and bird chatter, ringing sounds and drones fading in and out and then slowly Reinhard's violin appears. Waves of ahhhs as backing vocals and that pulsing synth. It finishes with discord and shrieks from the violin feeding back. Lovely stuff but a bit unsettling too. And please do not for a moment read anything into the title of the song and the subject of this post, they are not connected.
Yesterday's post must have appeased the weather gods- I post some Tropicalia and out comes the sun. More new music for your delectation today, from Belgium this time, courtesy of multi- instrumentalist Reinhard Vanbergen and vocalist Charlotte C. Reinhard and Charlotte are also two thirds of Ghent's Balearic dance act Rheinzand. This album- Souvenir Des Bon Gouts- is a less dancefloor oriented, more chilled out affair, inspired by a restaurant in Ghent called Chambre Séparée and the chef/ owner Kobe Desramaults. If I'm ever in Ghent, I'll check it out and report back. This song, Julien, opens the album and is a very pleasant way to spend five and a half minutes- soft drums, some violin and atmospherics, a spacious feeling and Charlotte's voice.
