Location:

Canary Islands & India

Biography:

Romain Liebs was born in Germany in 1973 to a French mother and German father. At the age of 5, the family went to South America for four years before returning to Germany and arriving in the Canary Islands, Tenerife at the age of 12. Surrounded by Jazz musicians, Romain was exposed to music from an early age, which has defined his life ever since.

1984 Aged 11, he starts to learn classic guitar 1987 Aged 14, he starts to learn electric guitar and keyboard 1988 Starts writing and performing electronic music 1990 Winner of Jugen Musiziert, german ¿¿? in classic music 1990 Starts with the production of solo instrumental LP (Deepness), produced by Radio Club Tenerife in Aries Studios, SC de Tenerife 1992 At 19 he releases the LP Deepness in KU Santa Cruz, with Juan Velda 1992 Several songs from ‘Deepness’ are used in documentaries about the Canary Islands, produced and broadcast by Canal 7 del Atlántico 1994 Writes the soundtrack for the theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1995 Plays electric guitar solo in Isle of White (GB) in front of more than 2000 people, an interpretation of Vivaldi’s 4 seasons

A prolific artist, Romain Liebs started with music when he was 12 years old (now he’s 32) and has been living on Canary Islands for over 20 years now, producing music and television commercially for over 17 years. During that time, Romain has produced and released an Electronica album, (pioneering the genre in the Canaries), has done soundtracks for theatre, publicity, TV and cinema, he is a multi-instrumentalist (guitar, keyboard, bass, didgeridoo, vocal, bansuri and other flutes), has published themes in compilations and has collaborated with international artists.

Review:

The album ‘Feel Light’ is a collaborative project – into this framework, they add samples (recorded by them in places like India), well worked structures, additional drum machines, to create erotic images recorded by themselves and other life instruments performed by the many guest artists that make up the Music Gurus. A beautiful collection of crafted songwriting, this album is one to remember for a long time.

Interesting facts:

The wave sounds at the end of the cd where recorded a few metres from where nearly the entire album was produced, in Boca Cangrejo, Tenerife. Some parts where recorded where the musicians come from: Pondicherry, India. Leo Minax is a well known Brasilian singer who lives in Madrid and Jean Paul Wabotai is from Congo and has achieved a gold album in Australia. Pooja Chowdori is an indian dance teacher, descended from an important indian singer (her grandmother); she has collaborated in several international workouts. Polo Ortí, a piano genius, has composed songs for Path Metheney and Gary Burton. The song “This World” has gospel elements in the choirs. All was recorded by Romain Liebs, overdubbing himself. His multinstrumental talent is reflected in this album: all the flutes, guitars, some basses, some lyrics and nearly all the arrangements where interpreted by him.

In the penultimate track, “Embrace” he performs a poem in 4 languages. The first theme is sung by his sister, Isabel. Romain’s usual collaborator, Vincent Appel, lives in India. Although he already had discographic experiences from the age of 17, as well as many compilations and tv spots, this is Romain’s debut album. The album was mastered by audio vision in Germany (munich) and Tenerife.

Only every now and then do projects come out that you can refer to as having clear international projection, further with the particularity that this one questions internationality and fusion. Never before has jazz and funk been mixed with traditional indian raga, but on feel Light, it has been done, through close collaboration with one of the few music geniuses of the spanish panorama: Polo Ortí. But the music gurus (the masters of the author of this cd) are many more: two virtuoso traditional indian vocalists (Dr. Arimalam and Gotam Mitra), recorded in their country,as well as the talented Pooja Chowdori, tabla-players, one of the best jazz contrabass players (Pablo Martín), a brasilian singer (Leo Minax) and many more. A little bit of ambient music, of funk, and than purer electronica create an album whose style could be defined as etno-ambient-funk-fusion. From the electro-funk touch given by Ivan T. Hall (Primitive Sound System) to ambient parts with impressing traditional indian voice solos,

In spite of all the variations of fusion, this album maintains a consistent them and mood. The lyrics, sung in English, French, Tamil (Indian dialect), Portuguese, Spanish and even in German, are impregnated of positivism and spirituality. The album shines by its transparency and originality.

Links:

Romain Liebs - http://www.romainliebs.com

Tunes: