by Anja Millen Imagery
Shortly NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION had a chat with PLANKTON WAVES from Luxembourg. We talked about the band’s tour with ZOOT WOMAN and ANIKA, the music scene in Luxembourg, PLANKTON WAVES‘ new EP “Songs Of Endings”, their future plans and of course hope and passion. Enjoy the interview with PLANKTON WAVES.
You have been on tour with ZOOT WOMAN and ANIKA, just to name a few. How did this happen?
We have not really been on tour with them, we have just done a couple of support shows for some interesting artists. We also recently played with SANDRA KOLSTAD from Norway. She is not very known over here yet but her music is really nice. We are quite DIY so we do almost all bookings ourselves. We just ask around, try to find interesting locations, interesting artists and create contacts, try to set up little tours. And sometimes your luck plays well with your hard work. Natalie and me have been active in the musical scene for quite a while so we know a couple of people here and there. So sometimes we get asked to play with cool artists as well. It was really nice to meet Geoff Barrow from PORTISHEAD or the guys from THE SOFT MOON.
How would you describe the music scene in Luxembourg?
Luxembourg is a very small country, so obviously the musical scene is very small too. Everybody knows everybody after a while. There has always been a very active and wild DIY scene here and it’s only over the last couple of years that there have appeared more professional structures. We got new and more professional venues, a music export office, a music resources center which offers rehearsing space, a recording studio and even band coaching and so on. Those things made it easier for bands to become professional to a certain degree and to cross the borders of the country. It’s a good thing of course though it has taken some edge out of the scene and out of the music. Or maybe it’s just the time we live in.
PLANKTON WAVES‘ new EP “Songs Of Endings” was released on May 10th 2013 via Valley Of Tears
What can people expect from your new EP „Songs Of Endings“?
It’s a twenty-minute long trip into a strange world. We recorded the EP alone, by ourselves in our studio with a bunch of old analog synthesizers, vintage drum machines and tribal instruments. As the title suggests, the five songs on the EP deal with endings in different ways, with personal downfalls, with the apocalypse and with emotional ruptures. We think that it is our darkest musical output so far, yet it is not all bleak and gloomy. When something important in your life ends, when you lose something, there is a blankness and a melancholy but there is also an uncertain glimpse of new things to come. We wanted to explore this darkness which holds a beauty or even just the seed of beauty in it.
Any plans fort he future?
We are going to play some shows here and there and probably do a small tour in autumn. We may release one or two songs from the ‘Sings Of Endings’ Session that we didn’t put on the EP. And we are going to restart jamming and experimenting very soon, there are many new ideas to explore and define. We’ll keep you up to date on our site and, of course, on facebook.
What means “hope” and “passion” to you?
Passion makes you move. It makes you rise and it can make you fall, but without it you don’t move at all. Even if it consumes you, it makes you shine.
Hope, on its own, makes you endure, but it can also make you suffer unnecessarily. Passion is a stimulant, hope is a sedative.
PLANKTON WAVES‘ new single “Warrior”