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The journey begins

#1 Feel Alive & Maria

Palmanu
Nov 20, 2022
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The journey begins

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Hi!

I am Palmanu and I want to welcome you to my very first soundletter! Thank you for deciding to be part of this journey through the landscapes of my music.

Picture by Amélie Chapalain // August 2022

From now on, for the next six months, I’ll send a letter monthly on every third Sunday. Each letter will be filled with two songs from my upcoming album Sway alongside some stories, liner notes, sound recordings and pictures linked to every single song. Since you belong to my first listeners, I want to give one of these two songs exclusively to you.

I produced the whole album together with Mario Fartacek, who plays such an important role for me and the whole Palmanu-project. He made me jump over my shadow and start to record many parts of the album on my own. I never recorded music in such a serious way before. After finishing my parts, we startet to record and produce in his studio together with some great musicians and friends. In this process the songs grew to what they are now.

Thanks from the bottom of my heart to Mario and all the other musicians playing and singing on my album: Lukas Weidmann, Robin Prischink, Anna Gruchmann, Veronika Gruchmann, Amelie Tobien, Giovanna Fartacek, Sebastian Goditsch, Benjamin Prieger, Vanessa Dullnig & Klara Fuchs <3

First get together of almost all musicians // July 2022

The two songs I’m presenting to you today are Feel Alive (mp3 // Spotify // Bandcamp // video) and Maria (mp3). Feel free to download and share them as much as you want! And if you know someone, who might be interested in subscribing to my soundletters, tell them about it! :)

Next month you’ll get a counterpoint-song to the stressful pre Christmas time and another one, looking at us human beings through different frames.

I hope you all get along well in these cold November days!

Excited greetings and some love

MJ


Feel Alive

In September 2021 I have been to Iceland together with my brother Sebastian. While walking the Laugavegur-Trail through the colorful and volcanic landscape of this beautiful island, a deep feeling of happiness and connectedness came over me.

Laugavegur, Iceland // September 2021

I don’t remember many moments in my life feeling that intensity of breathing, freedom and being alive. In this vivid landscape I started to write the lyrics for Feel Alive. A few days later, the two of us coincidently found a grey and windy coastline, where we met no one but some Icelandic horses. Sitting by the sea, listening to the sound of the northern waves, I wrote the song on my little guitalele. Here you can listen to these waves.

Back home, in the studio in Vienna, we decided to put some of the wave sounds in the beginning and middle part of Feel Alive. Instrumentally, as on almost all songs of the album, Lukas is playing the piano. Giovanna is singing the choir in the chori and Veronika plays flugelhorn in the ending of the song.

I wanted to shoot a music video for Feel Alive by the seaside, but going to Iceland for that reason would have been too much effort. So, together with Ulrich Gruchmann-Bernau, a musician and film maker, I decided to make a road trip to Premantura, the southernmost tip of Istria two months ago to shoot the video there. We slept in the car and shot hours for hours on every spot we liked. Alongside having a great time together in the late summer sun, I was challenged and attracted by the idea of dancing and moving to the nature sounds in the video. You can see the result here.

Ulrich shooting in the green // September 2022

Lyrics

Every fibre, every cell
Is dancing with the wind
Open up your heavy shell
Calm your bones and let it in
Let it in, let it in

Every color, every cloud
Is moving in the air
Raise your voice and shout out loud
Hear the motion everywhere

The breath of life
Within these grounds
Within these rivers, hills and stones
This living space of sound
The breath of life

Oh, oh, feel alive, feel alive
Oh, oh

Every weather, every wave
Is floating in its time
Leave behind your cosy cave
Into the wild the light will shine

With every step and every breath
I feel closer to myself
In the silence I found space

The breath of life
Within these grounds
Within these shivers, trees and bones
This living space of sound
The breath of life

Oh, oh, feel alive, feel alive
Oh, oh, feel alive

Sorrow, pain and all their friends
Are waiting for their turn to thrive
Every wave comes to its end
A precious time till they arrive

Oh, oh, feel alive, feel alive
Oh, oh, feel alive

Maria

This song is one of the most important ones I ever wrote. My beloved granny, Maria (“Maria Oma”), died all of a sudden in June 2021. When I visited her the day before she died, she was sitting in her old armchair talking about the luck being surrounded by so many loving and caring people without any pain or sorrows. While talking, she was pointing out of the window to her garden with the big old walnut tree, telling me that she feels like a queen in her queendom.

The loving gaze of Maria // Sometime around 1996

I wrote the song Maria just a few days after she died. It is a tribute to a wise woman, who knew about the secret of unconditional love and the value of simplicity.

A few days before her death, most of my family was on holidays, a neighbor recorded a voice message for our family group, where she says: “Die Sunn scheint sche und woam is ma. Und i gfrei mi scho wieda, wonn’s ihr kemmts. Baba”. Since I wanted to keep her voice close to my heart, I decided to put that tiny record piece into the song. Now, her voice is saved within the music.

At first, the song sounded totally different to its final version. In the production process we often called the song “greßte Baustö” (biggest construction work). It came with a forward moving tempo and feeling. We already had recorded drums, double bass and Veronika played a flugelhorn solo. It sounded like that: Maria old version

Since both Mario and me were not happy with the sound, we decided to start all over again. We used the same harmonies in a total different framework. In the final version, we sampled a beat, Mario played the guitar, I played the keys and Veronika is singing the backings.

Lyrics

Baby, can you see
Fading memories
And these lovely people
Beneath our walnut tree

Nothing hurts indeed
Nothing more I need
To be calm and happy
Within my family

Your open heart, your open door
Your precious art to live

I feel like a, like a queen in my queendom
In my blood floats a crown full of love

All those years ran by
Had to laugh and cry
That’s what life is built of
If you trust and if you try

When you looked at me
I felt loved and safe
Now I bring flowers
To your cold and stony grave

Your open heart, your open door
Your precious art to live

I feel like a, like a queen in my queendom
In my blood floats a crown full of love

“Die Sunn scheint sche und woam is ma.
Und i gfrei mi scho wieda, wonn’s ihr kemmts. Baba.”

I feel like a, like a queen in my queendom
In my blood floats a crown full of love

Full of love, full of love, full of love
We keep you in our hearts

Although memories are fading
We won’t let you fall apart
Although memories are fading
We keep you in our hearts

Thanks for reading Palmanu's Soundletter! Subscribe for free to receive new letters and support my work.

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