apperaat

FRESH OUT OF THE OVEN
May I introduce you to apperaat?! A completely new NL/DK based art act and creative wonder team. Consisting of: Tam Vibberstoft, artist, songwriter, composer, producer, singer and 1. Nielsgade, composer, songwriter, producer, musician, film maker. “Flirt With The Glass” is their brand new single and video from the debut album ? ! (Album release date: November 25 2013).

With 2500 kilometers between them and 30 years age difference, apperaat is an online collaboration and in many ways a different kind of collaboration. We Love it!

Official about: “apperaat does a wide variety of art and music for private companies and cultural institutions (and ourselves) in order to create solutions that are different, visionary and anti mainstream. our services combined with reasonable prices have already proved to be beneficial to a large number of clients …and us. We make music, photos, performance, ambient display music, films, music videos, decorations, installations and more. Many artists work with one specific type of art but we, on the other hand, do not separate the different disciplines. Instead we try to make use of all our competences and combine them in one big project, namely apperaat.


Our philosophy is to create everything in-house. We do everything in-house. Our visual expression is not affected by a different video director. The music is not altered by another producer. We are not saying we are fantastic, but we have some competences. And that’s what we make use of in apperaat.”

WE ARE NOT JUST A BAND – MORE A CREATIVE PROJECT
WE LIKE TO THINK, THAT WE ARE ONE OF A KIND – PERHAPS WE ARE NOT
WE LIVE IN UTRECHT AND AARHUS…SO WE ARE AN ONLINE-PROJECT.
WE LOVE ERRORS AND WE USE THEM IN OUR WORK …” - KALTBLUT magazine

Quirky Rumblings Between Here and Utrecht.


Art-pop seems to be appropriate to Denmark’s second city and to make sure of that local producer and promoter Niels Gade and visual artist Tami Harmony Panik Vibbersoft have joined forces to throw some aural paint in your face..

Expect some raucous performance pop coming your way soon as these guys seem to be on a mission to turn things on their head. Fusing visual art, punky riffs and mashing up media between here and Utrecht they don’t seem to give a shit as long as they get the chance to shake things up. An album is in the pipeline for this year and they appear to be workaholics so watch this space for some upcoming dates.

Now they are current with the first release from their upcoming album “? !” set for release in the end of this year. The album is recorded here in Aarhus but also in Utrecht and Warszawa, supported by DMFF and Aarhus Municipality. Watch the new single “Elevation” below: - Sound Of Aarhus

? ! – a cinematic music performance “Take a seat and enjoy a glass of wine. You are about to embark on a live cinematic music experience accompanied by apperaat.” This was what was written at the top of a page on every paper, a program of sorts, which was scattered on the floor of the HUB. Before I could finish reading the rest, the performance had started. Niels Gade and Tami Harmony Panik Vibberstoft (the members of apperaat) entered the stage; the music started; they started to sing; a video, a kind of accompaniment to the music, began.

“It has to be pleasant” Apperaat believes in pleasant art whereby one can have “room for entertainment, enjoyment, and reflection.” It is interesting to juxtapose entertainment and reflection. Entertainment by nature gives a predictable pleasure. This seems to be in direct contrast to the post-modernist claim that an artist cannot communicate a precise idea to an audience– the audience decides for themselves what the piece means based on their own preconceptions and experiences. It is this characteristic that invites audience members to reflect, which can thereby lead to a transformation of perspective. As David Cronenberg says, “Entertainment wants to give you what you want. Art wants to give you what you don’t know you want.” Apperaat has given themselves the task of playing with the tricky balance between entertaining art and being artistic entertainment.

“? ! – our debut album” After coming home from the performance, I downloaded the debut album of apperaat from their website: www.apperaat.com. I listened to it from start to finish. I found it to be an eclectic auditory experience of ambience, noise, and musical surprises that I am glad to listen to over and over again on these rainy days in Berlin.

"We are storytellers" Within this performance, there was a story. It is inspired by “The Dreamers” by Karen Blixen. In “The Dreamers,” three men exchange the story of the woman they fell in love, each of whom disappeared. The woman in each story turns out to be the same woman, Pellegrina Leoni. She is a woman who looks to earn adoration and devotion while waiting for the other shoe to drop, but before it does, she changes her identity. For apperaat, it is a story about “disconnection and reunion.”

For me, the story transformed to become one about a woman who, through multiple identities, attempted to earn the adoration of two figures, the audience and Niels. The multiple identities of the heroine were represented by the numerous characters of Tami presented in the video accompaniment as well as her costume change from a black suit to a white dress. Through splitting her attention between the two figures, the heroine attempted to create a pleasant experience that would charm them. Now my question is does this new heroine also expect bad things to happen, and if so in the context of this performance, what would ‘the bad’ look like?

Our live act. The performance brought together elements of performance art, language, music, and video art. Balancing four forms can be difficult to say the least, each form having its own associated techniques and limitations that come along with them. I felt that in this performance, apperaat successfully brought these elements together through an extreme cohesion and lack of disparity. For example, during the song titled ‘Elevation’ when the lyrics “Lift me, life me, life me, life me up” was sung, behind the performers a video of what you would see if you were flying through the clouds was shown. While ‘Flirt With The Glass’ was performed, Niels was handing out glasses of wine in the audience, while Tami was sipping a glass of wine on stage.

Apart from the wine, there were other offers presented to the audience; Niels gave out disposable cameras, which people used to take pictures of the performers and the audience, and later boiled eggs – quirky but delicious. To say the least, I did have a pleasant experience, visually, auditorily, and gustatorily. In this way, this performance was a success. I am curious to see, however, how their future projects will define or re-define ‘pleasant.’ Something being pleasant can air on the side of socially acceptable; however, when thinking about giving pleasure, not only can receiving or collaborating be pleasant but also violence and tension, for example.

Set list. A set list of 14 songs was performed:

Unknown Planet

Switch It On

Deliver

Liquid Affection

Elevation

Send Listen

Courage

Uranus

What? Crazy!

Flirt With The Glass

Black Box

Przystanek

Coming Home

Venus

Each song seamlessly flowed into the next. Uranus was my favourite.

http://www.mpa-b.org/17-may-2014.html - MPA-B