Text;Peter Fengler
Music; Hajo Doorn
Direction and production; Lukas Simonis
Cast; Stephie Büttrich, Peter Fengler
Musicians; Hajo Doorn, Lukas Simonis
Singers; Peter Fengler, Mariska Simon, Hajo Doorn en Lukas Simonis
Language: German
The ‘Strømboloque Fantasies' is an electronic play/opera inspired by ‘Die Winterreise' by Franz Schubert (music) and Wilhelm Müller (text). The play represents a modernistic, neurotic version of the romance of Schuberts time; the internal struggles between man and nature, and between the nature of man and himself. Leitmotif? Man's battles with technology and knowledge, (is celery really healthy? Why can't I get online right now?) and the myth of the modern ‘flexible' man. The backdrop, and not unimportantly, is man's longing for simplicity, clarity, safety and self-confidence.
The lyrics and stories were all motivated by the book ‘David Hasselhof' - by Jörg Fischer – about the actor and rockstar who became a household name thanks to his intimate relationship with K.I.T.T (his car) and later for his penchant for gazing 'Ins Blaue Hinein' during his work with ‘Baywatch. The general gist of it describes a tenuous link between classic Greek pathos and the making of a Hollywood star. The words in the play represent the protagonist's internal monologue and the songs, his carrier.
Language;german Duration; 59'
written by Xentossula Fraytonian Bentoz
with music by Felix Kubin.
Guitar, Bass and Background vocals: Viktor Marek
Directed and produced by Lukas Simonis
and acted by : Stephie Buttrich, Peter Fengler, Peter George Blakeney, Joe Monk, Inge Willemsen, Alex Hart
An exciting action-thriller with unmistakably squirmy undertones. And the apparently ‘happy end' is not quite as it should be. (without wanting to give it all away, the legless, Scaninavian terrorist and the reality-t.v. producer seem to have a lot in common).
This is a joint effort from the London radio play virtuoso Bentoz (radio resonance), the Hamburg underground superstar Felix Kubin and the RadioWorm crew.
Language; english Duration; 60'
text; ErikWard Geerlings
music; Pierre Bastien
director and editor; Lukas Simonis
actress; Nanette Edens
A radio version of a piece by Geerlings, that was previously performed on the boards as a mime/dans/theatre. It's a monologue by an expensive sort of sex-toy, (not a blow-up-doll we concluded!) called ‘Alphie'. Alphie messes up a relationship, and doesn't come out unscathed.
With mostly mechanical music, from the French instrument builder/musician/composer Pierre Bastien.
Bastien is also known for his work for the ‘hip' Rephlex label, and Geerlings is known ‘cos he is an inspired Rotterdams theatre writer, who's worked in the past with Paul De Jong. (see; ‘The Books')
Language; dutch Duration; 55'
text; kenji Siratori
Voice; Peter Taylor
Recording and editing; Lukas Simonis
Short, cut-up text by Cyberpunk writer, Siratori. Draped in a Northern Irish/watery/post-experimental soundscape.
Language; english Duration; 6'
Text; Sadegh Hedayat
Music,sounds; The Static Tics
Voices; Stephie Büttrich, Henk Bakker, Lukas Simonis
'The Blind Owl' is classic Iranian novel. In short it could be called ‘existentialist psycho horror”. Dynamic and structure of the book are very well suited for a radioplay-treatment. The approach is quite ‘psychedelic' in a sinister way; a mixture of ‘radio brut', multiple personality disorder-in-the-age-of-spam-kind of voices over a deconstructed story that still tells the orginal tale.
Language; english Duration; 59'
WET DREAMS OF THE POPE
Black Sifichi en Bart Plantenga -text
Lukas Simonis - direction(?), sound design
voices; Black Sifichi = narrator, Roma Napoli = Velena, Yosel = the pope, Bart Plantenga = producer , dj pausa, Lukas Simonis=gondolier & Marcinckus
This is what Bart Plantenga says;
* Written in 1991 via the mail by myself and the multi-talented Black Sifichi [aka Fot Sifichi] as a cheating version of a cadavre esquis as we wrote alternating sections of the story until the end each encouraging provocations of style, substance and history. The story is about a hypocritical Pope who a hypocritical mass of humanity are willing to forgive his annoying political gestures to the far right and to spiritual oppression [spiritually kicking liberation theologists where it hurts most and beatifying and lionizing the most oppressive kingpins of Catholicism. It also deals with the political intrigues surrounding the mysterious death of the whistleblowing and house cleaning John Paul I to be replaced by II, who turned a blind eye to Opus Dei, to the Vatican bank scnadals and other spiritual hypocrisies and became a champ of the good old boy network.
The short story appeared in the bone-breaking, sales-disappointing short story collection WIGGLING WISHBONE: STORIES OF PATA-SEXUAL SPECUALTION [Autonomedia]. Portions have been read on Radio Libertaire, WFMU and a section appeared on the CD "Ashes to Ashes - Dub to Dub" read by Black Sifichi with dub accompaniment by the venerable dub crew from Lyon, Brain Damage.
The story was recently produced for VPRO, Dutch public radio by Lukas S. [Coolhaven, Lliana Flun Wink, WORM] with incidental noise and music by Lukas S. The cast starred Yosel as the Pope, Black Sifichi as the author, Roma Napoli [Dix 10] as Velena, bp as the producer. It is a difficult text of truth and aberration involving Papal prurience and power-tripping as the Pope meets his match in a young Italian anarcho-beauty.
Saturday night at midnight on VPRO radio [on cable, in the ether, on internet] 14 April. The world premiere of the radio play version of the shjort story as produced by Rotterdam's WORM organization with music
DE GOEDE BUURMAN
Direction & anything else; Hansko Visser
Production; Lukas Simonis (which basically meant paying Hansko for his work and not much more)
De Goede Buurman, Afdruk van een molecuul
(documentair hoorspel in het kader van morosofie in theorie en praktijk)
…Waarin muzikant en meubelmaker Hansko Visser op zoek gaat naar het graf van zijn voormalige buurman, wat uitloopt op een zoektocht naar de buurman in zichzelf en naar de muziek en het instrument, die de wereld beter zouden kunnen maken, de mensen gelukkiger…Met een gedicht van William Carlos Williams, de stem van Klaske Oenema, het juiste fietswiel en symphonie ‘Uit de Nieuwe Wereld’ van Antonin Dvorak.