etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

Jamie Collier’s writing style stems from country and blues, with influences from Tom Waits to Gillian Welch. A sensitive acoustic guitar technique, strong melody and a powerful singing voice form the backbone to a captivating performance of storytelling in song. From New Zealand, his musical journey of 9 entirely DIY albums has led him to hold a respectable stance in the craft of songwriting.

Jamie arrived in Berlin in the Winter of 2012, where he entered the Berlin scene, as so many musicians have, busking on the streets and passing the hat in the bars around the city. He co-founded the folk/synth-pop duo The Rad Dads later that year and kick started a mobile recording service to record Berlin’s musicians. Jamie will be joined by some fellow musicians for a memorable evening of songs.

Support act the clockwork faerie

The Clockwork Faerie is the project of Berlin-based Johanna Blackstone. It is Clockpunk & Opera Strange. “To tell a story… That is the meaning of my song. The story of forever… Ticking on and on and on…” The Inventor! (Johanna Blackstone), sings with a pure tone voice that seems like a siren over water, playing a resonator ukulele that couldn’t be more fitting. Occasionally accompanied by The Engineer! (Gerrit Haasler), her songs weave together to tell a story of the Assemblage of The Clockwork Faerie.

She will be joined, in part, by The Harlequina (contact juggling) and The BellyBot (Belly Dancer) to present the ‘Circus of Broken Dolls’, a project that tells the sweet story of one trying to learn from the other through movement and music.

“It’s all about power in the darkest hour… ain’t no free ride, if you want to glide, on it” says Bey on the song Sacred.

This newly formed duo appeals to the cinematic sense of music and the freedom to navigate beyond category. Inspired by the revolutionary 1960’s of Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles, marinated over time, Citizen X finds a new voice in the theater of today’s globalized one-world politics. The duets move through a landscape filled with a sense of spirituality, atmospheric sound bytes punctuated by wide ranging guitar sounds and observant commentary on today’s tumultuous world. Cadillac Eldorados, Sun Ra’s Arkestra and names like Amiri Baraka, Fred Hampton and Huey P. Newton come to mind in a blend of black-a-delic consciousness, bringing a sense of proximity to both danger, beauty and love.

Jean-Paul Bourelly started his musical career in Chicago playing with some of the south side’s most adventurous figures like Phil Corran, Pete Cozey and formed his outlook on music. The city was blazing one night and the next day everything was gone. So was the 60’s in the heat of social change. Bourelly moved his avant blues on to New York performing with Elvin Jones, Miles Davis and Pharoah Sanders before embarking on 14 CD’s under his own name, which include Saints and Sinners (DIW), the rock flavored Trippin and Afro experimental trip, Boom Bop.

Sadiq Bey began his social investigation with performance and poetry in post-insurrection Detroit’s experimental music scene with artists like Faruq Z. Bey, Kenny Cox, poet Dudley Randall and drummer, Roy Brooks. He is best known as the front man for Don Byron’s NuBlaxploitation, Tuskegee Experiments, The Othello Syndrome with pianist Uri Caine and his own projects, schwartzegeist and >Green_man/. In 2008 he received the Berlin Studio Project Award for his electronic/acoustic recording Slow the Ear (Allzeit Musik). He recently appeared at English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center in the role of Maurice in the world premiere of Alexander Thomas’ play Schwarz gemacht.

Sofia Talvik has emerged like a lady of the forest, bringing a new interesting side to folk music. She plays a unique blend of folk-pop (someone said Neo-Folk). This American genre filtered through her Swedish heritage becomes something totally unique, a blend that has attracted attention from a broad audience all over the world.

Her combination of modal chord changes and beautiful 60’s folk-pop melodies combined with the gentle singing of a 70’s folk songstress will make you think of Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Jewel and Aimee Mann.

“Of all the voices – and man, they seem to issue them at birth to Swedish women – Talvik has the most faith in hers in an “I don’t need a theatrical gimmick” kind of way.” – Austin Chronicle

support act mc hansen

Danish singer and guitar slinger MC Hansen combines the storytelling of traditional folk music with contemporary country sounds. His music echoes both his Danish heritage and his American influences.
The sound of Scandinavia in American clothes – it’s Scandicana! Imagine Bob Dylan playing chess with H.C. Andersen on Neil Young’s front porch.

A travelling musician since 2003, he plays some 120 shows a year with his own band or as the guitar slinger with The Sentimentals who tour with Jonathan Byrd, Gurf Morlix, Ed Romanoff, Corin Raymond, Ana Egge, Matt Harlan, Dana Cooper and Sam Baker. He’s played the Olympia in Paris and the Hammersmith Apollo in London with Madeleine Peyroux. He tours all year and so far he’s played shows in 12 different countries, toured America six times and released four albums.

His fifth album From Whitehorse to the Crow’s Nest will be released in the fall of 2014.