FES • Flat Earth Society

Collaborations come in many shapes and sizes. It's sometimes difficult to put labels on artists and place their sounds in the printed medium. Peter Vermeersch, the maverick musical 'mad scientist' creator behind Flat Earth Society, has produced an impressive body of multi-faceted music which defies categorisation. Big band to modern classical, jazz to experimental, soundscapes to the absurd, music for theatre and silent films, contemporary concertos of cascading colour.

John Watts is also an artist competent in many styles. Pop, poet, political, singer/songwriter, film-maker, humorist, multimedia artist and raconteur; all labels which could theoretically apply to his wide range of talents. Originally known for being the leader of Fischer Z, Watts has been recording in multiple styles and across a wide range of instrumentation for three decades, resulting in seventeen albums which have collectively sold over two million copies.

The combination of these two forces is every bit as exciting as you would expect. Watts' love of creative chaos set off against Vermeersch and his band's broad-palette musicality, make for an original and potent artform.
Spike Jones to Spike Lee, Chopin to deadpan, Velvet Underground to The London Underground, Martian dustmen to Marshall Dillon. It's all here; music, words, atmosphere and imagery. So bring down the lights and roll out the Big band. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Flat Earth Society with John Watts.”

TOUR DATES:

26 March
Vooruit, Jazz & Sounds, Ghent, Belgium

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CD release tour starting

28 oktober 2009

When you write a song in answer to an existing song, you get an Answer Song.

Gerda Dendooven, Rokus Hofstede, Corrie van Binsbergen, Peter Vandenberghe, Bruno Vansina, Peter Verhelst, Peter Vermeersch and Tom Wouters worked on lyrics and music for a dozen songs for FES. Among others, Esther Lybeert performs as singer.
Existing songs, susceptible to or screaming for an answer were longlisted. Style, age, language were of no importance. Usually the text was decisive, but also instrumental songs were considered. There were no limits to how close the adaptation had to refer to the original, the new composition didn’t even have to be in the same style. But new lyrics on an existing song were out of the question.
The result had to be a completely autonomous song, and couldn’t depend on its reference to the original.

The reference could go from

0 to 100 %, but it couldn’t become a cover-evening.

The premiere was on September 14 2007 during the KlaraFestival in Bozar Brussels
Coproduction: non-profit organisation BONK, KlaraFestival and De Singel.

CD RELEASE TOUR:

28 October (TRY-OUT)

De Singer, Rijkevorsel, Belgium
29 October
Ab Club, Brussels, Belgium
30 October
Handelsbeurs, Ghent, Belgium
3 November
CC Hasselt, Hasselt, Belgium
4 November
Schouwburg Brugge, Brugge, Belgium

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Video

Welcome back, dear dwellers of earth, to planet FES. The wildest, most colourful and least traditional jazz big band in this (or any) stratosphere return with their second album for Crammed Discs.

The title, ‘Cheer Me, Perverts!’ – an anagram of the name of the FES main man, Belgian composer and clarinetist Peter Vermeersch – does the job as a soundbite for this fabulous new repetoire from the 15-piece group: sharp yet ambiguous, cheeky, alluding a little to the dark side... but ultimately making a LOUD and compelling case to the deviant streak in us all. Each of the usual FES elements are in place... that is to say, absolutely nothing usual whatsoever: car-chase funk that careers off the road and into walls of blistering ensemble brass: wonky screwball jazz that wears its trousers proudly round its ankles: a serene early Miles moment that gets a terrifying visitation from Bernard ‘Psycho/Taxi Driver’ Hermann in the shower... you know the deal by now – or rather you don’t, which is what makes hitching the FES wagon such a thrilling ride every time.

And so, 2009 brings 'Cheer Me Perverts!' – a new, full-beam FES record. What, for Peter Vermeersch, has changed since 'Psychoscout'? “The songs on 'Cheer Me...' have a more preconceived structure, the range of atmospheres is larger, the writing seems strangely more advanced and at the same time still clear and to the point, and (guitarist) Pierre Vervloesem is part of the band in all songs... but the composer himself is the last person to say anything sensible about his own music”.

Then again, who needs sense when you have Flat Earth Society?

Flat Earth Society • Cheer Me, Perverts! – cram 138 – will be released April 2009

Videos