Tarab - Travels with my guitar
'TARAB
- Travels with my guitar' is Carl's first book of road stories.
A new CD of songs related to the stories in the book was released jointly
and features rare Brazilian recordings as well as songs written for The
Hottentots and new material.
From the Sudan to Northern New South Wales, Tarab is an epic, mesmerizing
tale of high adventure and the search for meaning. Carl Cleves escapes
national service in Belgium to live in South Africa at the height of the
Apartheid era. So begins the adventures and quests, wanderings and narrow
escapes, mishaps and illuminations of a guitar-toting troubadour in his
roles as young beat poet, law student, single father, ethnomusicologist,
relief worker in India and recording star in Brazil. Cleves's page turning
memoir is no simple music biography, but rather the story of an artist's
quest for Tarab: a place where music and poetry bestow true bliss upon
the lucky one.
Carl's book 'Tarab - Travels with my guitar' is available in all good bookshops in Australia and New Zealand from or on line through Transit Lounge Publishing or Boomerang Books
Carl Cleves
Carl Cleves, originally from Belgium, is a contemporary of Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Paul Simon, John Martyn and other songwriters that emerged in the 1960s and 70s and with whom he shared the stages of the London folk clubs during the time of the folk boom.
Unlike the others who stayed in the scene, Carl’s wanderlust led him to a life of travelling, guitar in hand, to Africa, Asia, the Pacific, South America and Australia, where he has now settled. Along the way he has acquired a loyal following in Europe, Brazil and Australia while avoiding the radar of the international music industry.
‘A legend? Hardly, I’m a rumour, a whisper’.
Carl's nomadic past results in highly original songs which have won many awards in world & roots categories - most recently, MUSICOZ & Australian Songwriters Association - BEST FOLK SONG AWARDS.
Carl's unmistakable guitar style was learnt from Brazilian players, bluesmen, Bert Jansch & Caetano Veloso, from the American banjo and the arabic oud. Traces of Brazil, Africa, folk and blues are the spice in the stew of Carl's songs which range from polyrhythmic exuberance to intimate subtlety, the personal to the political. Poetry and emotion.
LATEST
RELEASE:
'OUT OF AUSTRALIA' Carl Cleves and Parissa Bouas
'OUT OF AUSTRALIA' was recorded in super audio, surround sound by the German sound guru, Gunter Pauler, in his state of the art studio in Northeim, Germany. His Stockfisch Records label has a cult following with audiophile music lovers, in Germany and around the world.
Review
SMH Jan 7-8 Jan 2012
Carl Cleves is a rarity: a musician whose first language is Flemish (he
emigrated to Australia more than twenty years ago) who can write compelling
songs in English and who, after years of living in Africa, formed Australian
world music group The Hottentots.
In his latest manifestation, he describes himself and vocalist Parissa bouas as “Australia’s definitive coffee house couple”, which is much better than the usual genres of “folk duo” or singer-songwriters”. The problem is that Cleves and Bouas’s music is genuinely genre-busting. Sure, it is crafted out of folk-roots but somehow Bouas’s vocals, which are sweet, rich and soaring, actually reach beyond the usual folk styles.
This is one album worth owning simply because there are a number of amazing songs. The Bethlehem Bell Ringer is a powerful political cry for some kind of humanity and sanity to return to the violence between Israel and Palestine. Set against the killing of a Christian bellringer in Bethlehem (true story), this song has the resonant chorus, “Oh Jesus, please help Palestine? Turn all that blood back into wine”.
No less powerful is Cleves’s stark account of the Coniston Massacre, the last mayor aboriginal massacre in the Northern Territory, and his melancholy story about black goldminers in south Africa, Way Down in the Mines. This is an original variation on folk and world music.
Bruce Elder
contact: Carl Cleves, PO BOX 1492 Byron Bay, NSW, Australia
+ 61 2 5613 0031
carl@carlcleves.com
myspace: www.myspace.com/carlcleves
youtube: www.youtube.com/CARLCLEVES
New
Releases
Out of Australia
Purchase
directly from Stockfisch Records here
Stockfisch
Records are available in Australia from Rockian
Trading
All Alone
buy
CD here: www.indie-cds.com
or now internationally available and downloadable through CD
Baby
listen
Tarab - Travels with my guitar
buy
CD here: www.indie-cds.com
or now internationally available and downloadable through CD
Baby
listen
For album track lists and discography
click here