Anett Tamm

Category: BORDERS

  • Bye-bye, Douce France!

    The “Borders” tour in France has come to an end. But there is still a lot of touring to follow: starting from Thursday we’ll play 10 concerts during 8 days in Finland!

    Our tour programme has been extended with a concert on 26 November in Outokumpu and two lunchtime school concerts on 21 and 22 November. Time to get my spirit ready for the concert marathon! In light of the busy schedule in the coming weeks, I’m glad that my last week in France was at a more leisurely pace and included, in addition to two performances, alarm clock-free mornings, long walks and museum visits in Nantes.

    Last week’s concerts took us to the Landemont commune near Nantes and to the lavish capital of Luxembourg. Landemont hosted a small, cosy home concert for the local villagers. In Luxembourg, we gave a concert on Sunday morning at 11am in the magnificent Neumünster Abbey. There was also a small group of Estonians in the audience, which I was so pleased about – it’s a different kind of heartwarming feeling when someone understands the Estonian lyrics. 🙂

    Photos from Luxembourg by Andre Henrot

    I can’t resist giving you a brief overview of my touristy activities in Nantes. After spending three weeks here, I am still of the unwavering opinion that it is a super nice city with plenty to do and see, and one that I would love to visit again in the future.

    The Nantes elephant and Le Jardin extraordinaire

    The must-see larger-than-life mechanical Nantes elephant that walks, blinks, moves its ears, splashes water from its trunk, makes noises… and triggers a total childlike fascination in everyone!

    Le Jardin extraordinaire is a park with tropical plants and a 25-metre waterfall – a true jungle experience. 

    Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne and Le Jardin des Plantes

    Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne, a magnificent castle and castle museum that not only tells the history of the castle but also gives an in-depth insight into Nantes as a slave-trading centre in the 18th century.

    Le Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden with a peaceful atmosphere and a variety of plants, including the chance to meet some cute chickens.

    Le musée Dobrée (first 2 photos) and Le Musée d’arts de Nantes

    Le musée Dobrée, newly renovated and reopened, displays a rich collection of art and cultural heritage and reveals important artefacts from the history of mankind.

    Le Musée d’arts de Nantes exhibits magnificent works from the Middle Ages to the present day.

    Passage Pommeraye (1), La Cigale (2) and Nantes city views

    Passage Pommeraye is a luxurious multi-storey shopping street, full of quirky boutiques and cafés.

    La Cigale is an authentic Art Nouveau restaurant that opened in 1895 (!). It’s definitely one of the fanciest restaurants I’ve ever been to, despite the fact that I could only afford a cup of tea.

    Moving onto my chosen art practices again: music and lyrics. Today, I’m dissecting the lyrics of three songs in English from the “Borders” repertoire.

    I wrote the first verse of “Cage of My Mind” before the “Borders” project and collaboration with David, in 2019 as I recall. The lyrics remained unfinished and unused at the time, and came back to me when I started writing borders-themed lyrics for the new project. The lyrics are introspective and dramatic, reflecting on the internal prohibitions and commands that constrict the human mind.

    I’m in the cage of my mind,
    And the doors are open,
    In the cage of my mind,
    I keep lying to myself:
    “I’m trapped like a bird,
    And the burden on my shoulders,
    Feels so heavy I can’t breathe,”

    “Protecting the Borders” discusses neutrality. The song questions if and in what case non-intervention is better than intervention.

    Why stand there in the doorway,
    Not in nor out,
    Not lost nor looking,
    No predator nor prey?

    “Sediment” is probably the darkest, but nevertheless my personal favourite of the “Borders” programme. The lyrics speak of defiance of the limitations of human abilities and the inevitability of decline, but also of the cyclical nature of existence. 

    Exceeding volume, form and time,
    I force my arms to reach out wide,
    And strive to stretch until divine punishment,
     
    Before expiring inside out,
    From deprivation, angst and drought,
    I grind my teeth and curse the rain,
    I'm transient.

    As mentioned at the beginning of my post, our next adventures take us to Finland. Here’s the “Borders” tour schedule for Finland (public concerts only):

    21.11/ Vuotalo, Helsinki
    22.11/ Salon Lukio, Salo
    23.11/ Kalevan Navetta Hugo-Sali, Seinäjoki
    24.11/ Ö-Talo, Riihimäki
    25.11/ East Coast Jazz Club, Kotka
    26.11/ Karbidi, Outokumpu
    27.11/ Jazzkerho 76, Joensuu
    28.11/ Kulttuurikellari, Savonlinna

    So, all Finnish friends are very welcome, looking forward! I’m waving goodbye to France with a new hat, some bread, butter, cheese and wine. 🙂

  • From Nantes to Saint-Claude: a week of touring in France

    The “Borders” tour officially kicked off last week with five concerts in Nantes, Saint-Nazaire, Paris and Saint-Claude. In this short time I have already experienced quite a variety of cities and venues!

    Our first mini-concert in duo with David Chevallier took place in Clubhouse Nantes: a place and community for people whose lives have been disrupted by mental illness, to support them in finding employment, building new relationships, and generally becoming more independent and confident in themselves. Though we only gave a short concert of 4 songs, we were warmly welcomed, had some nice chats after the concert and ate baked goods made by members of the community. It was truly lovely!!

    On Wednesday, we gave our first full-length and full-band “Borders” concert at the Pannonica, Nantes. The house was packed and the ambience was wonderful. The concert was a success in many ways! 

    More photos of the concert in Pannonica by Rémi Alèm Goulet
    HERE

    The next day, we were off to the coastal Saint-Nazaire, a city with an industrial appearance, known for its ship industry. We performed in a former World War II submarine base, in a venue called Le VIP, which felt quite surreal and epic. We took an energizing stroll to the moody ocean after our soundcheck, followed by a massive dinner. Then we played another nice concert on a much bigger stage than the day before and went to the hotel for a short rest before heading to Paris the next morning.

    Paris! On Friday, we played at Sunset/Sunside, a legendary jazz club on two floors, with 3-4 concerts happening every evening. This venue was a peculiar one, with a stage so small we could barely fit on it and floor monitors so broken that they sounded like old radio speakers. Of course this didn’t stop us from doing the best we could during the concert and honestly, the tricky circumstances felt humorous in a cinematic way. But I must say, I now have a lot of respect for the Paris-based jazz musicians who often play in these kinds of clubs.

    After yet another short night, we were off to Saint-Claude, a city in the mountains near the Swiss border. The views were simply amazing: admiring big tall mountains is an activity an Estonian doesn’t get to enjoy every day! We played at a club called La Fraternelle, a cozy and welcoming venue. Before us played the fascinating trio Ostrakinda, it was a superb concert experience. Our performance was a late one, but felt magical nonetheless.

    Photo by Jeff Humbert

    So there’s the overview of the first quarter of our tour (5 done, 17 to go!). Moving onto the texts. This time, I’ll reveal three more song titles from the “Borders” program and explain the background of the lyrics a little bit.

    “Kodu arm on igihaljas” (“The Grace of Home is Everlasting”) talks about the exploitation of vulnerability. The subject’s personal boundaries have been worn down, yet despite its weakened and disoriented state it wishes to offer shelter and security to anyone in need, even to those who might abuse it again.

    Original extract of the lyrics in Estonian:
    Kalk, vastamata hool,
    paekivi praguneb
    ja liivana pudeneb teele,
    minust alles jääb pool.

    Translation:
    Cold, unrequited care.
    The limestone cracks,
    And falls onto the road like sand,
    only half of me remains.

    “Otsus” (“Decision”) speaks about the intertwining of the past, present and future. Decisions made by others before us, who had no clear vision on the outcome, seem significant and irreversible to us in the present. Furthermore, we often perceive the future as if it were a child who knows nothing yet (or a child who will grow up to fix the consequences), which helps take responsibility away from our own present decisions.

    Original extract of the lyrics in Estonian:
    Otsus on kui uisutera
    tundmatuse kirkal jääl,
    eemal, kesk eimiskit.

    Otsus on kui kohtumine,
    joonest saab üks teine joon,
    seistes vastamisi.


    Translation:
    A decision is like a skate blade,
    on the crystal ice of the unknown,
    far away, in the middle of nowhere,

    A decision is like a meeting,
    one line becomes another,
    standing face to face.

    “Estranged” talks about the internal conflict between a desire to belong and a resistance to being controlled. In this text, the mole acts as a symbol of a human stuck in an alienated mental and physical state.

    As the mole’s retrieved from grime,
    and invited to the inside,
    into the invisible panopticon of wishes,

    Though the mole forever blind,
    its heart’s unable to withstand,
    belonging and being controlled by loud and piercing whistles.

    I’ve now enjoyed two invigorating days off in Nantes. This week is generally more chilled and we have just two concerts left in this part of the world:

    13.11/ 6 La Croix Judith, Landemont (Fougeres was unfortunately cancelled last minute)

    17.11/ Abbaye de Neimenster, Luxembourg

    I’m looking forward to these, before we fly to Finland for the next part of our tour!

  • Crossing the first borders: hello France!

    A week ago I landed in Nantes, France, to begin preparing for the culmination of the “Borders” project with David Chevallier Trio – the tour!

    After almost 3 years of writing and preparation, we’ve arrived at the last and most adventurous stage of the project. I have decided to document this period by keeping a little blog. I’ll also try to expand a little on the background of the “Borders” lyrics in my writings here. Why? Whereas in the past I had always written music and lyrics hand in hand, this project was the first time that I had ever only written texts and sent them off to be used by someone else, in this case the magnificent composer and guitarist David Chevallier. The initially intimidating role of a lyricist proved to be rewardingly illuminating, giving me an understanding of the lyrical part of songwriting as an art form in its own right and forcing me to delve deeper into lyric writing than I had done before. Not to mention that the activity itself became so enjoyable over time that I now base my creative process in other projects primarily on text as well.

    But before I get to the texts, let me tell you a bit about my first week in Nantes. From Monday to Friday, David Chevallier’s trio and I spent full working days in a basement, at the jazz club Pannonica, rehearsing the “Borders” repertoire, delving into compositions and polishing our interplay. We followed the residency at Pannonica with a weekend of more rehearsals at bassist Sebastien Boisseau’s rehearsal space. As you might imagine, the process was exhilarating, fun, exhausting!

    People in the photos: David Chevallier (guitar), Joachim Florent (bass), Christophe Lavergne (drums), Sebastien Boisseau (bass)

    In the evenings, I was able to take quick strolls around the centre of Nantes before dark, gawking at the beauty of the city and the appetising selection in food stores, admiring the beautiful French people and their stylish shoes, lusting after the elegant displays in the boutique windows and treating a slight cold with plenty of tea and honey. And in case you’re interested in the weather, it’s been grey and damp all week, with vitamin D still replacing the sunshine for me, just like in Estonia. 🙂

    Now about the project itself, the big creation! In the framework of “Borders”, David and I collaboratively wrote 11 songs. My part was the lyric writing, precisely 6 texts in Estonian and 5 in English. The first two texts, “Et piirata piirituid piire” (“To Limit the Limitless Limits”) and “Escape”, were written in the autumn of 2022, while I was a refreshingly confused exchange student living in Cologne, Germany.

    “Et piirata piirituid piire” (“To Limit the Limitless Limits”) means everything and nothing at the same time. The song speaks of the unfathomable vastness within us and around us, which we try so hard to simplify by putting everything into conceptual boxes, by confining and defining our identities, by contrasting the bad with the good. How is it possible to be both distinct and conforming, both selfish and considerate, both free and controlled?

    Extract of the text in Estonian:

    Et piirata piirituid piire,
    ma lähetan end sinna,
    kus olen vaid liivatera,
    peidus kumeras maailmanabas.

    Translation:

    To limit the limitless limits
    I exile myself to a place,
    Where I am but a grain of sand,
    Hiding in the curve of this world.

    “Escape” is a story of exile, hope and uncertainty. The text is inspired by the descriptions and emotions of war refugees’ experiences.

    Extract of the text:

    There, on the opposite shore,
    Not a sound from a gun,
    And the sun never fades,
    Before the setting has begun,

    Are distant gates to heaven,
    Now open once and for all?
    No promise, song or letter,
    Ever reached over the wall.

    This week our tour begins! Tomorrow we play a short duo concert with David in Nantes, and then on to trio concerts in different parts of France.

    “Borders” in France:

    5.11/ 6 Rue de Bel Air, Nantes (duo)
    6.11/ Pannonica, Nantes
    7.11/ Le VIP, Saint-Nazaire
    8.11/ Le Sunset, Paris
    9.11/ La Fraternelle, Saint-Claude

    I cannot wait to see more of this beautiful country, its venues and audiences. Wish us luck and I will do my best to continue sharing impressions of the tour!

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