Sylvie Courvoisier Trio

This week song...

"Armageddon" by CocoRosie

Record of the Month

Donato Wharton - Trabanten





Donato Wharton

Born in Cardiff / UK and raised in Stuttgart / Germany. DONATO started making music 13 years ago. After taking piano lessons as a kid, he bought himself a guitar at the age of 15 and started playing in various bands in Stuttgart. At the age of 18, he signed his first record contract and moved to Cologne. There, he became interested in digital music and started producing hip hop instrumentals for the up-and-coming scene of Stuttgart. Now he works as a Sound Designer and Composer for Theatre and Dance Theatre.

http://www.donatowharton.com/

Mary Hansen (1 November 1966 – 9 December 2002)

Mary Hansen (1 November 1966 – 9 December 2002) was a guitarist and singer with Stereolab. Born in Maryborough north of Brisbane in Queensland Australia, Hansen moved to London in the late 1980s and became a backing singer with the Essex-based indie band, The Wolfhounds.

She met Stereolab founder Tim Gane when the Wolfhounds played with his band McCarthy, and joined Stereolab as second vocalist in 1992. She also played guitar, as well as percussion and keyboards, and occasionally sang lead vocals.

In 2000 Hansen teamed up with Seattle space rock group, Hovercraft to form Schema. Schema featured vocals and instrumentals in approximately equal measure, adding some synthesizer. An eponymous maxi-EP/mini-album [1] was released in 2000 on avant-garde Kill Rock Stars imprint, 5 Rue Christine. Hansen was struck by a truck and killed while riding her bicycle in London on 9 December 2002. She was 36 years old.[2]. Mary Hansen remained a member of Stereolab until her death. A second album and a tour with Schema were planned, but the group was dissolved with her death.

The Island

Ute, an 8-year-old girl, keeps running away from home and the Youth Center in order to go on her own into the animal Kingdom. She spends hours in the Zoo standing in front of the crocodile pond, which gradually dominates her life and her dreams.

Monika Brehm who is in charge of one of the children’s groups at the Center, tries to enter the little girl’s world. She senses that Ute’s escape to the crocodile is an escape from her parents and the grown-up world.

She succeeds in convincing Mr. And Mrs. Hagedorn that their daughter is not malicious and deceitful, but that child and parents must see a psychotherapist. As a rule psychotherapists are overworked and there is a long waiting-list for patients, so once again Ute is left with her helpless parents and runs away more and more often to the Zoo, to her beloved crocodiles.

It is thanks to Monika Brehm’s sense of responsibility and her commitment that Ute finally manages to break out of her isolation.

THE ISLAND 1974 / Wim Wenders