Posts Tagged ‘Paris’

Watch: ‘Frames – Live in Paris’ by HamaSaari

Posted: 5 July 2026 in Singles and EPs, Recommended Streams and Videos
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French progressive rock outfit HamaSaari have shared a stunning live performance video for ‘Frames’, one of the standout tracks from their acclaimed sophomore album Pictures, released earlier this year via Klonosphere.

Captured at the iconic Le Petit Bain in Paris during the band’s recent European tour supporting Norwegian progressive rock veterans Gazpacho, the video showcases HamaSaari at their most accomplished, translating the cinematic atmosphere of the studio recording into a powerful live performance. The footage was filmed by Pascal Van Beurden and edited by guitarist Jordan Jupin.

Reflecting on the experience, the band comment: “Le Petit Bain, floating on the Seine, is one of those Parisian venues with a soul all its own. Playing that stage, in that setting, felt like something special. That’s where we laid down ‘Frames’ that night, on our date with Gazpacho. We were already a week into the tour by then, well drilled, and it was their team, Pascal on sound and Jael on lights, who had our backs that night. It made for such a comfortable show. They even let us play one extra song, a gesture that really touched us. We’d also like to thank Lena Hemp (Uxcr Official / Hemp Prod) for capturing the footage and letting us loose in the edit room. And thank you to everyone who was there and shared that beautiful night with us.”

AA

Their latest album, Pictures, expands upon the foundations laid by their debut Ineffable, exploring themes of perception, memory, mythology, dreams, and the invisible boundaries between reality and imagination. Rich in atmosphere and emotional nuance, the album invites listeners to reflect on the images we choose to preserve, the stories we inherit, and the beliefs that shape who we are.

Fresh from touring alongside Gazpacho, HamaSaari will continue bringing Pictures to audiences across Europe throughout the year, with appearances at clubs and festivals in France, Germany, and the UK. Check out the confirmed dates below:

04.07 — Holzbunge, DE — Woodbunge Festival
16.07 — Lille, FR — High Voltage Bar
17.07 — London, UK — The Camden Club
18.07 — Abingdon, UK — Prog For Peart Festival
19.07 — Manchester, UK — The Peer Hat
21.07 — Middlesbrough, UK — Café Etch
22.07 — Nottingham, UK — Mist Rolling Inn
25.07 — Xanten, DE — Rhine Ent . Festival
29.08 — Tresboeuf, FR — La Charrue Festival
17.09 — Nantes, FR — Prog Night (la carriere)
14.10 — Lyon, FR — Rock N’ Eat
24.10 — Amiens, FR — La Filature

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Keiko Shichijo – Komitas Vardapet: Six Dances

Posted: 11 November 2016 in Albums
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Makkum Records – MR17 / Platenbakkerij Pb 006 – 17th November 2016

James Wells

In these times of accelerated media and an exponential growth in the volume of mew works being cast out into the world, it’s often easy for lesser-known items from the past to be lost to history, to be buried and forgotten. And yet the archive is an eternally rich source of gens which so deserve rediscovery. This album – released simultaneously on 10”vinyl, CD and download – is very much a labour of love. The origins of its existence lie in the past: Komitas Vardapet penned a cycle of pieces for piano – Six Dances – based on Armenian dances, in 1906.

Makkum Records’ Arnold de Boer writes how, on hearing Keiko Shichijo perform Vardapet’s compositions, he fell in love with the music, and how Internet searches revealed other performances of Six Dances but none which touched Keiko’s. and so he made it his mission to capture Keiko playing the pieces, and how it came to pass that Keiko played them on a Steinweg Nachf piano, built in 1880, in the Geelvinck Hinlopen Huis in Amsterdam, a 16th Century house along the city’s canals in December 2014.

In using such a vintage instrument, the recordings are imbued with a deeply ingrained and palpable sense of the origins of the work. ‘Unabi’ sounds like a child learning ‘London Bridge’: the notes are not so much tentative as prone to wandering, but there’s something compelling about the seemingly innocent disjointedness which sometimes creps into the refrain.

The looping motifs of ‘Shushiki’ are delicately charming, and draw the listener’s attention with their easy grace. The heavy timbre of the low notes at the beginning of ‘Het u Araj’ is compelling, and Kieko captures the spirit of the composter’s direction to perform the final piece ‘Shoror’ .The performances are wobbly, wonky, yet delicate and sincere, and this is an integral part of their mystical, dust-coated appeal.

 

Komitas Vardapet - Six Dances