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POTOMAK (GERMANY) 29 Titles
Potomak is an artist-run record label from German industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten. Originally founded by front man Blixa Bargeld in 1988, the label has devoted itself to releasing remastered, deluxe reissues of the band's catalog on both CD and vinyl, including genre-defying early works such as Kollaps, Zeichnungen Des Patienten O.T. and Halber Mensch. Additionally, Potomak has released various side projects from band members Alexander Hacke, Rudi Moser, Jochen Arbeit, Bargeld and collaborator Ari Benjamin Meyers.
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EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN
POTOMAK
POTOMAK 158682
With Grundstück, a real rarity is being released on the commercial market for the first time: Originally issued in 2005 as a small limited edition, the much sought-after album is now officially available as a CD and also for the first time ever as an LP, each including a DVD with previously unpublished film recordings of the project and an extensive booklet. With their noise-laden anti-pop, Einstürzende Neubauten has established itself as one of the most radical, unpredictable and unconventional avant-garde bands in the popular music scene. Looking back to the year 2002: To make itself independent of the record industry and keep full artistic control, the band became early pioneers of crowdfunding with an internet-based fan action for the financing of their next album, which came to be known as the supporter project. An interim work consciously conserved in its unfinished condition, Grundstück is the missing link between 2004's Perpetuum Mobile and 2007's Alles wieder offen. Grundstück represents what the album title asserts: One's own lot. Aside from material that was produced in the band's own Berlin studio, some parts of Grundstück were played live while on tour, matching the experimental character of the project's genesis: In addition to Blixa Bargeld, Alexander Hacke, N. U. Unruh, Jochen Arbeit, Rudolf Moser and Ash Wednesday, a 100-member choir made up of supporters can be heard. Grundstück opens with the noisy and propelling "Good Morning Everybody," based on engine sounds of air compressors and accompanied by rhythmic steel plate beats. The seven-part title track shapes its core, which in its atonal experimental spirit represents the non-conformism and nihilism that the name Einstürzende Neubauten stands for to this day. Closely connected to the album, an accompanying DVD was also produced with the help of a supporter. It was filmed on November 3, 2004, during a special supporter gig at East Berlin's Palast der Republik; the earlier political apparatus of the former GDR state leadership. Exclusive live recordings were made at a historical location, which was torn down shortly thereafter to make way for a demonstration of the power of the freshly reunited Federal Republic of Germany. Einstürzende Neubauten in the gutted control center of a collapsed state -- a witness of the times with the greatest possible symbolic value: Einsturz (collapsing), Neubau (rebuilding), Grundstück (lot). DVD is NTSC all-region format.
LP/DVD
Gatefold LP version with DVD. With Grundstück, a real rarity is being released on the commercial market for the first time: Originally issued in 2005 as a small limited edition, the much sought-after album is now officially available as a CD and also for the first time ever as an LP, each including a DVD with previously unpublished film recordings of the project and an extensive booklet. With their noise-laden anti-pop, Einstürzende Neubauten has established itself as one of the most radical, unpredictable and unconventional avant-garde bands in the popular music scene. Looking back to the year 2002: To make itself independent of the record industry and keep full artistic control, the band became early pioneers of crowdfunding with an internet-based fan action for the financing of their next album, which came to be known as the supporter project. An interim work consciously conserved in its unfinished condition, Grundstück is the missing link between 2004's Perpetuum Mobile and 2007's Alles wieder offen. Grundstück represents what the album title asserts: One's own lot. Aside from material that was produced in the band's own Berlin studio, some parts of Grundstück were played live while on tour, matching the experimental character of the project's genesis: In addition to Blixa Bargeld, Alexander Hacke, N. U. Unruh, Jochen Arbeit, Rudolf Moser and Ash Wednesday, a 100-member choir made up of supporters can be heard. Grundstück opens with the noisy and propelling "Good Morning Everybody," based on engine sounds of air compressors and accompanied by rhythmic steel plate beats. The seven-part title track shapes its core, which in its atonal experimental spirit represents the non-conformism and nihilism that the name Einstürzende Neubauten stands for to this day. Closely connected to the album, an accompanying DVD was also produced with the help of a supporter. It was filmed on November 3, 2004, during a special supporter gig at East Berlin's Palast der Republik; the earlier political apparatus of the former GDR state leadership. Exclusive live recordings were made at a historical location, which was torn down shortly thereafter to make way for a demonstration of the power of the freshly reunited Federal Republic of Germany. Einstürzende Neubauten in the gutted control center of a collapsed state -- a witness of the times with the greatest possible symbolic value: Einsturz (collapsing), Neubau (rebuilding), Grundstück (lot). DVD is NTSC all-region format.
HACKEDEPICCIOTTO
HackedePicciotto are Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto. Both are legends of their own making: Danielle de Picciotto moved from New York to Berlin in 1987, to become the lead singer of the band Space Cowboys, co-initiator of the Love Parade, a collaborator of the Ocean Club with Gudrun Gut, and Alexander's partner in crime. Alexander Hacke is an original member and the bass player of Einstürzende Neubauten. The artist couple, romantically married in 2006, has creatively interacted with countless international projects for almost two decades. Their live shows are, to put it mildly, intense. Danielle specializes in unusual instruments such as the hurdy gurdy, the autoharp, and the kemençe besides playing the violin and piano; Alexander is master of the bass, guitar and drums. Together they create beautiful, existentialistic, acoustic soundscapes, which roar and vibrate simultaneously. Menetekel is darker than their last masterpiece Perseverantia (POTOMAK 125171, 2016). The title is another word for "the writing on the wall" and the artist couple is projecting our collective despair of what is happening worldwide momentarily into a monumental symphony of sound. "All Are Welcome" whispers in harmony but very quickly the shadows grow deeper and the mood becomes wilder, the trumpets sound and the fall of "Jericho" is eminent, or is it the exile from Paradise? Danielle and Alexander gave up their home in Berlin in 2010 and have been touring the world ever since trying to find a sanctuary comparable to the artist haven the city used to be in the eighties. But times have changed. The icy winds blowing are everywhere and thousands of homeless souls are wandering the roads, their personal search becoming a universal cry for deliverance. "The great rains have begun" Danielle exclaims on "Prophecy", a whirlwind of oriental and western sounds dancing with each other faster and faster until they are morphed into the minimal "Crossroad". The symbolic and spiritual questions asked supply an unusual depth to the album, giving it a universal and very poignant touch of the human quest. CD version comes in a centerfold digi-pack cover.
Double LP version. Includes bonus tracks, download code, and signed photograph. HackedePicciotto are Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto. Both are legends of their own making: Danielle de Picciotto moved from New York to Berlin in 1987, to become the lead singer of the band Space Cowboys, co-initiator of the Love Parade, a collaborator of the Ocean Club with Gudrun Gut, and Alexander's partner in crime. Alexander Hacke is an original member and the bass player of Einstürzende Neubauten. The artist couple, romantically married in 2006, has creatively interacted with countless international projects for almost two decades. Their live shows are, to put it mildly, intense. Danielle specializes in unusual instruments such as the hurdy gurdy, the autoharp, and the kemençe besides playing the violin and piano; Alexander is master of the bass, guitar and drums. Together they create beautiful, existentialistic, acoustic soundscapes, which roar and vibrate simultaneously. Menetekel is darker than their last masterpiece Perseverantia (POTOMAK 125171, 2016). The title is another word for "the writing on the wall" and the artist couple is projecting our collective despair of what is happening worldwide momentarily into a monumental symphony of sound. "All Are Welcome" whispers in harmony but very quickly the shadows grow deeper and the mood becomes wilder, the trumpets sound and the fall of "Jericho" is eminent, or is it the exile from Paradise? Danielle and Alexander gave up their home in Berlin in 2010 and have been touring the world ever since trying to find a sanctuary comparable to the artist haven the city used to be in the eighties. But times have changed. The icy winds blowing are everywhere and thousands of homeless souls are wandering the roads, their personal search becoming a universal cry for deliverance. "The great rains have begun" Danielle exclaims on "Prophecy", a whirlwind of oriental and western sounds dancing with each other faster and faster until they are morphed into the minimal "Crossroad". The symbolic and spiritual questions asked supply an unusual depth to the album, giving it a universal and very poignant touch of the human quest.
Double LP version. 140 gram vinyl. Includes download code. Einstürzende Neubauten have discovered sounds beyond the pain barrier, the beauty of dissonance and the aesthetics of the scrapyard. They are regarded as the most important engines in the development of new musical strategies; Hardly another German band has characterized the music landscape as lastingly. Their influence on the music world was, and is, as great as their timeless character. Once fully set in motion - by West Berliners Blixa Bargeld, NU Unruh and Alexander Hacke in the early 1980s - Einstürzende Neubauten have pressed on regardless. Indeed since percussionist Rudolf Moser and former Die Haut guitarist Jochen Arbeit joined in 1997, the current Einstürzende Neubauten line-up has not only been their longest lasting; going on the evidence gathered here, it's arguably their broadest ranging and most fruitful partnership, with Rudi and Jochen always gamely responding to the musical challenges posed by NU Unruh's battery of invented instruments and devices. Along with multi-instrumentalist Alex Hacke, who took over bass after the departure of Mark Chung (after their 1992 album Tabula Rasa) and FM Einheit (during the recording of 1996's Ende Neu (POTOMAK 919821/919822)), they willingly switch between their chosen instruments and NU Unruh's inventions, sounding the depths, tapping, scratching and hammering out beats, or drawing haunting tones from the seemingly most unforgiving of source materials presented to them, invariably in the service of the song. The earliest track here is a newly mixed version of "Haus Der Lüge", the title track of their 1989 album Haus Der Lüge (POTOMAK 820001/820002); except it's now adorned with freshly recorded trombone and string parts, which the group wanted on the original but couldn't afford, so had to use synth simulations instead. Five tracks are taken from their 2000 album Silence Is Sexy (POTOMAK 957051/957052). During the 2000s, Einstürzende Neubauten's resourcefulness extended beyond the stage and the recording studio into the economics of alternative music practice. Two Greatest Hits tracks, "Dead Friends (Around The Corner)" and "Ein Leichtes Leises Säuseln", originated on their Supporters Album #1 (2003), which in publicly modified form became Perpetuum Mobile (Mute, 2004). Now as then as always, declares Greatest Hits's newest track "How Did I Die", "The difference makes the song".
Greatest Hits (180 Gram Vinyl)
Limited double LP version. 180 gram vinyl. Includes lyric sheet, download code, and five 12" posters. Einstürzende Neubauten have discovered sounds beyond the pain barrier, the beauty of dissonance and the aesthetics of the scrapyard. They are regarded as the most important engines in the development of new musical strategies; Hardly another German band has characterized the music landscape as lastingly. Their influence on the music world was, and is, as great as their timeless character. Once fully set in motion - by West Berliners Blixa Bargeld, NU Unruh and Alexander Hacke in the early 1980s - Einstürzende Neubauten have pressed on regardless. Indeed since percussionist Rudolf Moser and former Die Haut guitarist Jochen Arbeit joined in 1997, the current Einstürzende Neubauten line-up has not only been their longest lasting; going on the evidence gathered here, it's arguably their broadest ranging and most fruitful partnership, with Rudi and Jochen always gamely responding to the musical challenges posed by NU Unruh's battery of invented instruments and devices. Along with multi-instrumentalist Alex Hacke, who took over bass after the departure of Mark Chung (after their 1992 album Tabula Rasa) and FM Einheit (during the recording of 1996's Ende Neu (POTOMAK 919821/919822)), they willingly switch between their chosen instruments and NU Unruh's inventions, sounding the depths, tapping, scratching and hammering out beats, or drawing haunting tones from the seemingly most unforgiving of source materials presented to them, invariably in the service of the song. The earliest track here is a newly mixed version of "Haus Der Lüge", the title track of their 1989 album Haus Der Lüge (POTOMAK 820001/820002); except it's now adorned with freshly recorded trombone and string parts, which the group wanted on the original but couldn't afford, so had to use synth simulations instead. Five tracks are taken from their 2000 album Silence Is Sexy (POTOMAK 957051/957052). During the 2000s, Einstürzende Neubauten's resourcefulness extended beyond the stage and the recording studio into the economics of alternative music practice. Two Greatest Hits tracks, "Dead Friends (Around The Corner)" and "Ein Leichtes Leises Säuseln", originated on their Supporters Album #1 (2003), which in publicly modified form became Perpetuum Mobile (Mute, 2004). Now as then as always, declares Greatest Hits's newest track "How Did I Die", "The difference makes the song".
Einstürzende Neubauten have discovered sounds beyond the pain barrier, the beauty of dissonance and the aesthetics of the scrapyard. They are regarded as the most important engines in the development of new musical strategies; Hardly another German band has characterized the music landscape as lastingly. Their influence on the music world was, and is, as great as their timeless character. Once fully set in motion - by West Berliners Blixa Bargeld, NU Unruh and Alexander Hacke in the early 1980s - Einstürzende Neubauten have pressed on regardless. Indeed since percussionist Rudolf Moser and former Die Haut guitarist Jochen Arbeit joined in 1997, the current Einstürzende Neubauten line-up has not only been their longest lasting; going on the evidence gathered here, it's arguably their broadest ranging and most fruitful partnership, with Rudi and Jochen always gamely responding to the musical challenges posed by NU Unruh's battery of invented instruments and devices. Along with multi-instrumentalist Alex Hacke, who took over bass after the departure of Mark Chung (after their 1992 album Tabula Rasa) and FM Einheit (during the recording of 1996's Ende Neu (POTOMAK 919821/919822)), they willingly switch between their chosen instruments and NU Unruh's inventions, sounding the depths, tapping, scratching and hammering out beats, or drawing haunting tones from the seemingly most unforgiving of source materials presented to them, invariably in the service of the song. The earliest track here is a newly mixed version of "Haus Der Lüge", the title track of their 1989 album Haus Der Lüge (POTOMAK 820001/820002); except it's now adorned with freshly recorded trombone and string parts, which the group wanted on the original but couldn't afford, so had to use synth simulations instead. Five tracks are taken from their 2000 album Silence Is Sexy (POTOMAK 957051/957052). During the 2000s, Einstürzende Neubauten's resourcefulness extended beyond the stage and the recording studio into the economics of alternative music practice. Two Greatest Hits tracks, "Dead Friends (Around The Corner)" and "Ein Leichtes Leises Säuseln", originated on their Supporters Album #1 (2003), which in publicly modified form became Perpetuum Mobile (Mute, 2004). Now as then as always, declares Greatest Hits's newest track "How Did I Die", "The difference makes the song".
DE PICCIOTTO & ALEXANDER HACKE, DANIELLE
Perseverantia
LP+CD
The German-American artist couple Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke are internationally known, Danielle as the founder of the Love Parade, Alexander since over 35 years for his work with the seminal Berlin group Einstürzende Neubauten and both together as members of the band Crime & The City Solution. Since 2001 they have been creating interdisciplinary projects on stage, in theaters and museums as a duo. Perseverantia will be issued on Neubauten's very own label Potomak. Their last joint venture, the album Hitmans Heel was released in 2011 and a video to the track "Time Is Passing", shot in Mexico under Danielle's direction soon developed into a cult classic. "Perseverantia" means "endurance" or "persistence" and the artist couple, otherwise known for their adventurous lifestyle and unusual experiments are obviously concerned with a different theme this time around. Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke have been leading a nomadic life since 2010, with no permanent home and travelling from one city to the next. The reason for their restlessness is the overall gentrification, the annihilation of individualism, the rising costs of living and the relentless sellout by the mainstream entertainment industry. "Artists need to find new ways of working now-a-days in order to upkeep integrity and autonomy. The old patterns no longer function." The uncompromising decision to abandon their home has since determined their work. Their search for external & internal clarity, researching archaic principles and philosophies has helped them master the rigors of the road. For the attentive listener, Perseverantia reveals a treasure of their truisms. The album was recorded in the Californian Mojave desert and is mostly instrumental, with a few spoken-word lyrics by Danielle. Together with the throat-singing by Alexander Hacke, the purring and squeaking of the hurdy-gurdy and an ether-plucking harp, melancholic violin melodies and the hum and growl of bass and guitar, one is placed in an acoustic world of mysteries, which floats out of the loudspeakers like an epic movie, both disturbing and mesmerizing. "Perseverantia ad finem optatum" they sing in the title track, and is their main consequence of importance: To successfully achieve a positive goal, we need one thing above all: endurance. No matter how stony the road or wild the storm - we must continue following the path of our destiny. Liebe Li Surrender is not an option - for none of us. Limited to 500 copies worldwide.
2015 repress. Includes a large format 12-page booklet. Originally released in 1981, Kollaps is the seminal, form-destroying debut album by German industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten (trans. "Collapsing New Buildings"). The band's use of junk metal, power drills, jackhammers and other surprising instrumentation would come to define their challenging and continually inventive career, making them not only one of the originators of industrial music, but one of the world's most influential and far-reaching forces at the intersection between avant-garde and rock music. Formed in 1980 in the wave of the Dadaist movement Die Geniale Dilletanten, after a series of devastating live performances and personnel changes (one of which briefly involving electronic musician Gudrun Gut), the band's line-up cemented itself with core members Blixa Bargeld, F.M. Einheit (previously of Hamburg-based post-punk band Abwärts) and N.U. Unruh. On Kollaps, a violent collision of urban primitivism and punk sensibilities, the trio declared war on every conventional way of listening, combining an intense mess of atonal guitar drones with brutal scrap metal percussion. At a time in Germany in which the wall encircling West Berlin transformed the city into a state-subsidized, near-paradisiacal freak-enclave for artists, Einstürzende Neubauten offered cathartic cascades of noise, employing steel parts, tin drums, drills, hammers, saws and untuned electric guitars, all crowned by Bargeld's bloodcurdling screams and feverish, apocalyptic texts. Kollaps, with its atonal essence, embodied exactly what the title suggested: decay and destruction, illness, doom and death. Years later, with the fall of the Berlin wall behind it, Kollaps still sounds as radical and extreme an artistic statement as ever.
Silence Is Sexy
2015 repress; Gatefold vinyl reissue of Einstürzende Neubauten's Silence Is Sexy, originally released in 2000. This vinyl double album contains the track "Pelikanol," first available as a bonus track with the 2000 release of the album and now for the first time available on vinyl. Silence Is Sexy finally receives a long-awaited reissue on the band's own label Potomak. The element of surprise was and continues to be routine for Einstürzende Neubauten. On Silence Is Sexy they masterfully celebrate the unexpected in the exploration of silence. It is a wonderful album in the classical Neubauten sense; lyrical and melancholy. It's a musical coming-of-age from metal-defying scrap iron sound to constructed melodiousness, with a familiar rhythmic undertow -- playful, arrogant, poetic, subversive, dandified and mature. From its first release in 2000 (marking the 20-year existence of the band) to date, it has doubtlessly remained the group's most complex work and the most fascinating in its evolution. It shows the Neubauten universe from both a known, emotionally moving side, as well as one that is deliberately constructive. It clearly breathes the inimitably rough Neubauten handwriting, while Blixa's voice cuts through intellectual and cryptic texts. It is carried by metal sounds, from which individual instruments can almost no longer be extracted -- and by silence. Ultimately, nearly inaudible tones or laughter in the right place can seem more destructive than the most enduring rage. This is an album that won't be ignored; a unique appearance in the history of German rock music. 180 gram audiophile pressing.
2018 repress. Reissue of Einstürzende Neubauten's Silence Is Sexy, originally released in 2000 from singer Blixa Bargeld and his band partners (N.U. Unruh, Alexander Hacke, Jochen Arbeit and Rudolf Moser). A concept of "conceptlessness" was created at that time from a spontaneous idea (many thought it was an April Fool's joke when Einstürzende Neubauten first stood on the stage at Berlin's "Moon" on April 1, 1980; now over 30 years ago), from which the "brilliant dilettantes" developed their own strategy against social and musical architecture using metal pipes, feathers and machines. Blixa Bargeld constructed metaphor-laden poetry around which unique worlds of sound were built up from objects of the most varied origins. The band discovered sounds beyond the pain barrier, the beauty of dissonance and the aesthetics of the scrapyard. They are regarded as the most important engines in the development of new musical strategies. Hardly another German band has characterized the musical landscape as lastingly as Einstürzende Neubauten. Their influence on the music world was and is as great as their timeless character. Silence Is Sexy finally receives a long-awaited reissue on the band's own label Potomak. The element of surprise was and continues to be routine for Einstürzende Neubauten. On Silence Is Sexy they masterfully celebrate the unexpected in the exploration of silence. It is a wonderful album in the classical Neubauten sense; lyrical and melancholy. It's a musical coming-of-age from metal-defying scrap iron sound to constructed melodiousness, with a familiar rhythmic undertow -- playful, arrogant, poetic, subversive, dandified and mature. From its first release in 2000 (marking the 20-year existence of the band) to date, it has doubtlessly remained the group's most complex work and the most fascinating in its evolution. It shows the Neubauten universe from both a known, emotionally moving side, as well as one that is deliberately constructive. It clearly breathes the inimitably rough Neubauten handwriting, while Blixa's voice cuts through intellectual and cryptic texts. It is carried by metal sounds, from which individual instruments can almost no longer be extracted -- and by silence. Ultimately, nearly inaudible tones or laughter in the right place can seem more destructive than the most enduring rage. This is an album that won't be ignored; a unique appearance in the history of German rock music.
Hitman's Heel
Alexander Hacke is known as the bass player of Einstürzende Neubauten and main figure in Fatih Akins' movie Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul. Besides collaborating in countless bands on the side, he has also been composing film scores for two decades. Danielle de Picciotto was a singer for Space Cowboys and Gudrun Gut's Ocean Club and is an icon in Berlin's creative underground. She is also the co-founder of the Love Parade together with Dr. Motte. Her art and film projects are exhibited internationally. Hacke and de Picciotto have been a huge influence on Berlin's underground scene since the '80s and have been touring the world with their collaborations since 2000. This album goes back to the basics. After deciding to give up their house in Berlin in 2010, the couple is on the road in search of new horizons. Celebrating this restless nomadic lifestyle, they decided to go back to classic songwriting, without sequencing or electronic processing. Concentrating purely on their instruments (guitar, autoharp, keyboards, drums), their songs can be performed on any stage and unplugged. Disregarding fashion, conventions or everyday standards, their lyrics speak of the world they are discovering: solitude, magic and freedom. The brew-ballads, gypsy rolls, Italo Western piano tunes, heavy guitar riffs and autoharp transport the audience into the world of the uncompromising explorer.
2008 release. Einstürzende Neubauten guitarist Jochen Arbeit presents a collection of 10 years of his solo works for film, theater, performance pieces, and installations. Some of the highlights include: "Burlesque," made for the film Die Unerzogenen by Pia Marais, and recorded in 2006. The piece was ultimately rejected and was subsequently used in a Stupid Green art performance. "Piece For Adidas" was used in a sound-installation for Adidas at the "Bread And Butter" fashion fare at the "Kraftwerk," Berlin 2007. The company commissioned the building of a wellness room with foot massages, beds, interactive monitors, etc., in a completely white room. This piece ran there for 2 days straight. Arbeit's work is richly detailed and often looped -- dark bass and reedy electronics mingling with rough guitars, Rhodes, vibraphones, Chinese zithers, saarang, computer-generated voices, and other accoutrements. Also included is a DVD containing 4 videos and 3 Surround Sound mixes. Housed in a tri-fold, 6-panel deluxe digipack, including a fold-out poster insert of the cover art, with liner notes on the reverse.
The Ship Of Fools
2008 release. DVD plus audio CD with 10 tracks. Story: Sebastian Brant's medieval novel The Ship Of Fools (1458) has been an inspiration for numerous seafaring artists throughout the centuries. The image of a ship filled with fools, seafaring through the oceans of life appealed to Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke, inspiring them to compose a show based on fools described in the book. Deep bass lines, scraping metal, melancholic autoharps, violent guitar riffs, bizarre sound recordings, entwined with Hacke's magnificent singing and Danielle's mystic lyrics are illuminated by intricate projections depicting illustrated scenes of fools' debauchery. This luxurious package contains a filmed documentary of the premiere in Berlin on the 1st of December 2007 and a CD with music from the show. The beautiful visuals and soundtrack of the performance are enriched by inserted interviews illustrating how the artists went about creating the performance while touring the world. Their comments on redefining Sebastian Brant's fools are humorous yet pensive -- an artist's perspective on how mankind has or has not developed, after investigating its medieval history. CD length: 88 minutes. DVD picture format 16:9 color; DVD type: DVD-5; NTSC. Housed in a tri-fold, 6-panel deluxe digipack.
2008 release. This is the first solo album by Einstürzende Neubauten drummer, instrument maker and composer Rudi Moser. These 16 tracks resemble short story miniatures whose range of sounds and tones are developed from associative motifs extracted from feathers, a dulcimer, glasses, aluminum pipes, tires, an out-of-tune e-guitar and a Wurlitzer piano -- all of it backed up by some incredibly solid percussion, and some bracing electronics. Possessing a more pared-down, minimalistic approach to sound composition, but with all of EN's hard-driving force compelling it forward.
BARGELD, BLIXA
Commissioned Music
2008 release. Originally released in 1995, this is the solo debut release from legendary Einstürzende Neubauten performer/vocalist/actor/musician, Blixa Bargeld. Commissioned Music collects several of Bargeld's work for theater and film. Features a collaboration with his replacement in the Bad Seeds, Roland Wolf, for the film Jahre Der Kälte and theatrical piece Dumpfe Stimmen (which includes Bargeld's incredible and Lynch-ian rendition of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"). Commissioned Music features a wide swathe of minimal instrumentation -- chimes paired with bass, lyre with glockenspiel, piano with shimmering slide guitar and droning, static-y electronics to create darkly ambient mood-pieces, and smoky theatrical numbers from behind the black velvet curtain. The music for Jahre Der Kälte is based on a cadence by Franz Schubert. Blixa's vocals cover all his usual spectrums: from parlor-croons, to deep-as-graves intonations, to high death-rattle aspirations. An essential collection for all true Blixa Bargeld and EN fans.
1/2 Mensch
2017 repress; 2002 release. LP version. This is the third album by Einstürzende Neubauten, also known as Halber Mensch, originally released in 1985. The album opens with the startlingly oppressive, almost fully a cappella title track, with contrapuntal, atonal, en masse chanting. The album progresses to include quite a repertoire of electronically-generated sounds, finding the band developing their mishmash of industrial experimentation matched by terrifying clangs, stomps, and of course, the theatrical, poetic vocal delivery of Blixa Bargeld. An incredibly aggressive album, with insistent, pounding rhythms and razors on metal, and Bargeld's voice dominating your dreams for a month after listening.
Alles Wieder Offen
2007 release. Working outside normal record business market mechanisms, Einstürzende Neubauten recorded this album over some 200 days in their own studio funded by their world-wide network of subscribing supporters via www.neubauten.org. Possibly informed by the title of 2000's Silence Is Sexy, the word on the international music scene was that Einstürzende Neubauten had become calmer, quieter even. Alles Wieder Offen blows this assumption out of the water; it is an urgent and compelling album in every aspect. The instruments do not exhaust themselves by a consumptive struggle against each other as they might have on prior recordings, but instead create an unprecedented fusion of Einstürzende Neubauten-typical instruments with conventional ones. Alexander Hacke's bass has never sounded warmer, Jochen Arbeit's guitar more graceful, the metal of Rudolf Moser and the percussion of N.U. Unruh more unsettling and diverse, or Blixa Bargeld's voice more mercurial yet forceful. It's the little details that first draw the attention: Jochen Arbeit's whizzing guitar on "Unvollständigkeit," seeming to anticipate the outburst that follows: a rain of light, falling aluminum sticks; the way Alexander Hacke electronically deconstructs Rudolph Moser's rounded, flowing rhythm on "Weilweilweil"; the deft combination of uplifting organ and the almost tender feedback that rends the sky open on "Nagorny Karabach." This album also is very conscious of the band's history. On a lyrical level, "Unvollständigkeit" is a sister piece to both "DNS/Wasserturm" (1983) as well as "Redukt" (of Silence Is Sexy, 2000); "Nagorny Karabach" refers to "Armenia" (1983), which is the sun of the EN-cosmos; "Von Wegen" quotes both their first single and a line from the song "Sehnsucht" from Kollaps (1981). Moreover, musically "Von Wegen" mirrors the structure of "Zerstörte Zelle" (1987). "Susej" is based around a rhythm guitar figure that Bargeld recorded in a flooded cellar of the Hafenklangstudio in Hamburg in the early '80s. Many layers have deposited themselves around the group's original nucleus. At the same time, the energy and the sheer willpower of the early days is still powerfully evident here. Perhaps the most emotionally-affecting and intellectually-stimulating album of Einstürzende Neubauten's career. Gatefold with full color printed inner sleeves.
Fünf Auf Der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala
Digitally-remastered 2002 release. This is the fourth album by German avant-garde industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, originally released in 1987. The bonus track "Adler Kommt Spaeter" is an early version of "Zerstörte Zelle." Considerably lower-key than all their previous releases, Fünf Auf Der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala (trans. "Five On The Open-Ended Richter Scale"), with especially puzzling, almost country-rock track "Morning Dew," sung in English, but with moments of whip-cracking and atomic explosions. There's the same attention to rhythmic assault on this record as on the others, but there's a quieter, more sinister, darker, lower-key ambience at work here, with Blixa Bargeld's vocals right at the center-front of the mix, as he experiments with breath, lower pitches, whispers, and barely-audible squeals. There's a barely-restrained, beautiful tension here that never gets resolved, sounding as if the band is holding itself back from complete annihilation. CD is housed in a 6-panel tri-fold digipack with an attached 10-page booklet of lyrics in German and English.
2002 release. This is the third album by Einstürzende Neubauten, also known as Halber Mensch, originally released in 1985. The album opens with the startlingly oppressive, almost fully a cappella title track, with contrapuntal, atonal, en masse chanting. The album progresses to include quite a repertoire of electronically-generated sounds, finding the band developing their mishmash of industrial experimentation matched by terrifying clangs, stomps, and of course, the theatrical, poetic vocal delivery of Blixa Bargeld. An incredibly aggressive album, with insistent, pounding rhythms and razors on metal, and Bargeld's voice dominating your dreams for a month after listening. Members include: Blixa Bargeld, Mark Chung, F.M. Einheit, Alexander Hacke, and N.U. Unruh. Housed in a six-panel tri-fold digipack including an attached 6-page booklet with lyrics in German and English. Includes 3 bonus tracks, including a remix of "Yü-Gung" by Adrian Sherwood.
2015 repress; LP version. Digitally-remastered 2002 release. This is the fourth album by German avant-garde industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, originally released in 1987. The bonus track "Adler Kommt Spaeter" is an early version of "Zerstörte Zelle." Considerably lower-key than all their previous releases, Fünf Auf Der Nach Oben Offenen Richterskala (trans. "Five On The Open-Ended Richter Scale"), with especially puzzling, almost country-rock track "Morning Dew," sung in English, but with moments of whip-cracking and atomic explosions. There's the same attention to rhythmic assault on this record as on the others, but there's a quieter, more sinister, darker, lower-key ambience at work here, with Blixa Bargeld's vocals right at the center-front of the mix, as he experiments with breath, lower pitches, whispers, and barely-audible squeals. There's a barely-restrained, beautiful tension here that never gets resolved, sounding as if the band is holding itself back from complete annihilation.
Haus Der Lüge
2002 release. This is the fifth album by Einstürzende Neubauten, originally released in 1989, now remastered. Highly energetic and possessed of a certain level of danceability, Haus Der Lüge was perhaps the most accessible for the band so far in terms of straightforward industrial-rock, with less grinding experimentation. However, this album is far from any sort of mainstream convention, with some of the most convincing alchemy of the best of the group's sonic clang, combined with some of the most captivating singing by Blixa Bargeld yet. The title track is a theatrical chug with the sounds of breaking glass, strings, and a strident vocal line, and "Schwindel" is a gentle, contemplative, almost spiritual drone-piece with jangly guitars, the quiet chime of wood tapped on bowls, and ascendant vocal chants. This album showcases all the best aspects of the band's musique concrète experimentation reigned in by impressive song-structure that doesn't diminish any of Einstürzende Neubauten's conceptual or ear-bashing impact. CD includes 3 bonus tracks and is housed in a 6-panel tri-fold digipack with an attached 14-page booklet of lyrics in German and English.
2015 repress; 2002 release. Gatefold LP version. This is the fifth album by Einstürzende Neubauten, originally released in 1989, now remastered. Highly energetic and possessed of a certain level of danceability, Haus Der Lüge was perhaps the most accessible for the band so far in terms of straightforward industrial-rock, with less grinding experimentation. However, this album is far from any sort of mainstream convention, with some of the most convincing alchemy of the best of the group's sonic clang, combined with some of the most captivating singing by Blixa Bargeld yet. This album showcases all the best aspects of the band's musique concrète experimentation reigned in by impressive song-structure that doesn't diminish any of Einstürzende Neubauten's conceptual or ear-bashing impact.
2003 release. Originally released in 1981, Kollaps is the seminal, form-destroying debut album by German industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten (trans. "Collapsing New Buildings"). The band's use of junk metal, power drills, jackhammers and other surprising instrumentation would come to define their challenging and continually inventive career, making them not only one of the originators of industrial music, but one of the world's most influential and far-reaching forces at the intersection between avant-garde and rock music. Formed in 1980 in the wave of the Dadaist movement Die Geniale Dilletanten, after a series of devastating live performances and personnel changes (one of which briefly involving electronic musician Gudrun Gut), the band's line-up cemented itself with core members Blixa Bargeld, F.M. Einheit (previously of Hamburg-based post-punk band Abwärts) and N.U. Unruh. On Kollaps, a violent collision of urban primitivism and punk sensibilities, the trio declared war on every conventional way of listening, combining an intense mess of atonal guitar drones with brutal scrap metal percussion. At a time in Germany in which the wall encircling West Berlin transformed the city into a state-subsidized, near-paradisiacal freak-enclave for artists, Einstürzende Neubauten offered cathartic cascades of noise, employing steel parts, tin drums, drills, hammers, saws and untuned electric guitars, all crowned by Bargeld's bloodcurdling screams and feverish, apocalyptic texts. Kollaps, with its atonal essence, embodied exactly what the title suggested: decay and destruction, illness, doom and death. Years later, with the fall of the Berlin wall behind it, Kollaps still sounds as radical and extreme an artistic statement as ever. This expanded digipack reissue includes 10 bonus tracks, including 9 tracks from Stahldubversions, a rare 1982 cassette release. CD comes housed in a deluxe six-panel tri-fold digipack with 23-page attached booklet.
Zeichnungen Des Patienten O.T./Drawings Of O.T.
2002 release. Originally released in 1983, Einstürzende Neubauten's second album marks a radical progression in the band's sound as well as a revolutionary step forward in the realms of industrial and experimental music. Bassist Marc Chung (ex-Abwärts) and electronics engineer Alexander Hacke (later a member of Crime And The City Solution) joined the band during this time, and singer Blixa Bargeld also became a full-time member of Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. Despite each members' background, Einstürzende Neubauten's ethos -- "Destruction is not negative, you must destroy to build" -- treaded on ground that was explicitly anti-music. Through their intuitive compositional approach and application of found, industrial objects into song forms, the band's sonic trajectory was intent on generating entirely alternate modes of music-making. In contrast to the all-out destructive barrage of their debut, however, Zeichnungen Des Patienten O.T. reveals an astonishing maturity in its varied and dynamic range of textures while still being no less uncompromising. From the gritty live wire pulse of opening track "Vanadium-I-Ching" to the disorienting field recording and jarring mechanical upheaval of "Hospitalistiche Kinder/Engel Der Vernichtung" to the panicked steel abrasions of "Neun Arme," this album is a masterpiece of what-the-fuck urban primitivism. Most effective of all is "Armenia," one of the most essential songs the band has ever made, with its subtle, slow-building tension and haunting Armenian orchestration taking Bargeld's signature inhuman screams to uncharted levels of psychological turmoil. This digitally-remastered reissue includes 3 bonus tracks and comes housed in a deluxe six-panel tri-fold digipack with an attached 16-page booklet of lyrics in German and English.


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Is There Anything Else I Need to Do to Start Receiving My Benefits?
A: It sounds like you have everything covered. Once your Post 9/11 GI Bill Certificate of Eligibility and your school's Certificate of Enrollment match up at the VA, that will start your payments coming from the VA to your school and you.
If you are attending school overseas, then the payment structure is different. The VA will pay up to $408.09 per credit to your school and you will get a fixed amount of $1,333 for a housing stipend. You should also get up to $1,000 per year book stipend.
As far as the whole credits thing and your housing allowance, I wouldn't worry about it. According to the Post 9/11 GI Bill rules, to get the housing allowance, your rate of pursuit has to be greater than half-time. Most schools consider 12 credits as full-time, so greater than half-time is seven credits (6 credits is half-time). If your school considers 6 credits full-time, then you will get your housing allowance. The greater than half-time amount is calculated off of what your school considers full-time and not on a fixed-across-the-board number of credits.


Traditional Holliday Village Project " The Vallachian Firepit " (Vatra Valaha) aims to build a holiday village to express on bio-eco-ethno-logical principles the picturesque and functionality of traditional architecture specific to Vallachians peasant spread across Europe and also the characteristic hospitality of areas currently occupied in the present by the descendants of the Valachs.
Besides the bio / eco – logic component, "The Vallachian Firepit" has also a strong cultural component based on secular history and pastoral and trade traditions of Vlachs.
Basically Vlachs are present today throughout Europe but mainly in the Carpathian area of Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Czech Republic. In the Czech Republic there is even a "Vlach autonomous region" called Moravian Wallachia (in Czech : Moravská Valaska), one of the bridgeheads for the continuity of Vlachs civilization along the Carpathians.
Vallachian civilization show striking similarities across the Carpathians in terms of ethnography, folklore and rural economy and it has a common part of the vocabulary, kept both in dialectal archaism and in the mountain toponymy.
Furthermore, the Valachs maintained a greater degree of self determination expressed by different judicial customs called Valachian Right (in Latin, the Lex Antiqua Valachorum or Jus Valahicum / Valachorum), known as the first law model as being mentioned a lot in the Romanian historical documents.
According to Wikipedia encyclopedia, the Valah Right had an economic part and a legal one, which could not be violated. In the relationship with the institutions responsible for enforcing and upholding the law of a certain state, Vlachs responded to any query using the formula: "Take me to your master, I have the Vlach right" , which ment he possess a special right.
In Romanian there are many sources about Vallachian culture but you can check this one in English, "We Are Valachs!" by editor Leo Baca, which is an article taken from: Stopami Minulosti: Kapitol z Dejin Moravy a Slezka /Traces of the Past: Chapters From the History of Moravia and Silesia/, by Zdenek Konecny and Frantisek Mainus /Brno, Blok. 1979.
By his mainly pastoral and trade activity, the Valah lerned primarily from the nature the principles of living in perfect symbiosis with it, life principles applied in green tourism – a basic concept promoted by our organization in Romania and Europe.
The Vlach Holliday village – "The Vallachian Firepit" is a tourism model that gather around an ancient "firepit" all these principles and who aims to facilitate access to authentic traditional Vallachian culture of all those who want to know and live the healthy lifestyles, the millenary traditions, customs and hospitality of the Vlachs.
In the specific rural Vlachs settlements you can always find clean air and clear water springs that come from the Carpathian Mountains. They were for centuries the keepers of the Vallachian material and spiritual heritage , which have taken over and integrated elements of local culture, created, invented and permanently adapted to historical socio-economic conditions.
The pleasure to visit at least some of these rural settlements in hours is impossible today in real conditions of modern society. This can be achieved only by visiting a single centralized site designed as a living museum containing seven of the most reprezentative traditional houses from each Carpathian country. More details here.
– Rematerializing benchmarks of traditional Valachian architecture in the seven Carpathian countries which could be lost forever if not rebuilt and presented for the future generations.


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The Remarkable Practice: Dr. Stephen Franson
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Dr. Stephen Franson's new book, The Remarkable Practice is designed for healthcare providers who are feeling overwhelmed or fatigued from running a private practice. As Dr. Franson puts it, they may be starting to feel like their career has become a job and one that detracts from the passion that got them into the field in the first place. Dr. Franson understands this from the firsthand perspective of his experience with his own chiropractic practice, The Remarkable Practice.
Through a series of systems that he outlines in this book, Dr. Franson demonstrates, for private healthcare practitioners, how they can redefine success on their own terms, turn their practice into a scalable business, reignite their passion, reestablish their own wellbeing, and find joy in the work once again.
Nikki Van Noy: Dr. Franson, let's start by telling me about your early experience as a chiropractor and how that ultimately led you to found Remarkable Practice?
Stephen Franson: I love the question because it lets me go down memory lane with my favorite person in the world, who is my beautiful, wonderful wife, Camila Franson–who is actually Dr. Camila Franson. I met my wife in grad school, down in Atlanta when I was at Life University, studying to become a chiropractor. She and I went through school together. We did four years of grad school together, and then did an internship together, and did a residency, an associateship down in Virginia, then opened our practice up in Boston, Massachusetts.
We've been together for 26 years and every minute of those 26 years, we've been passionate chiropractors working side-by-side. She and I started our business in Boston about 22 years ago, the original Remarkable Practice, and I would say that at that point, we were full of passion and big vision and ideas and plenty of energy. We knew we wanted to save the planet and we put a stake in the ground in little town of Beverly, Massachusetts and just put our heads down and our bums up and started taking great care of patients and teaching them about chiropractic–teaching them the truth about their body, how their body really heals, how the body functions, and their role in getting their health back and staying healthy.
We just blew up. We just exploded. We started taking off. It turns out that people were really looking for a better way to better health for themselves and their families and we provided that. Before you knew it, we were hopping and we were running a very 'successful' practice, which at that point in time, our definition of success was that we were busy.
How Do You Define Success?
Nikki Van Noy: Let's dissect those quotes a little bit. You were busy, what else was happening for you at that time?
Stephen Franson: Well, being a chiropractor in private practice and owning a practice is really just like owning any other business. You know, what they say, people are people and business is business, so you know, we were in the business of taking care of people. We were doing it as a married couple. You know, take three very difficult dynamics and combine them all into one thing.
I say 'successful' because, yeah, we had really let somebody else define what success was for us which, it meant that you are really busy, and you are taking care of lots of people. It was sort of easy for us to fall into that space because we love the work. We love taking care of patients. We love chiropractic. We were able to do it together. We hadn't had children yet. She and I waited 12 years to have kids together.
Now, we have a couple of beautiful kids. There was really no reason to leave the practice, you know? It made sense to stay till 8:30 at night and to show up on the weekends and do extra work. We literally let the practice take over our lives.
Everybody assumed we were so successful, and we looked successful from the outside–big practice, big house. Just a big life, but at the same time, we were just smoked. We were burning the candle at both ends and trying to snap it in the middle and light it there. Of course, this put a stress on us physically. We stopped working out the way we liked to. We started falling out of shape and getting exhausted. Of course, it hits hard on the marriage, and then you stop vacationing, and it's still all the name of your 'purpose', right? Your vision for what you're trying to do.
Then the rewards are there, you're getting financially rewarded. You're getting all the accolades and the praise and the recognition, but at the end of the day, you find yourself trapped. I like to say, you own a job instead of owning a business.
Nikki Van Noy: I've heard a lot of doctors in all fields, talk about the irony of the fact that this is one of those professions where the goal here is to lead your patients toward a healthier lifestyle. But often, just because of the nature of the business, doctors themselves fall into a very unhealthy lifestyle. Can you talk to me a little bit about that?
Stephen Franson: Absolutely, I mean, you're talking to the right guy about that. I'm a certified health nut and so is my wife. We were very much aware of the duplicity of, teaching our patients one way to live, and at the same time, the contradiction of us not sleeping the way we knew we should be sleeping, rushing through our lunches, and skipping workouts. Really this was justifiable because there were patients in need, the business was growing, everything was booming. It's easy to procrastinate, the one-day happiness.
It was just wildly incongruent, so we were out of alignment with what we were teaching our patients. That of course leads to destruction.
Nikki Van Noy: I'm curious if you had a moment where the two of you decided to redefine success in your own terms or if it was more of an accumulation to understanding that something had to change?
Stephen Franson: It's a pivotal moment that I actually describe in the book. I can remember my pastor saying something once that really just struck me and that was, "Be very cautious how you define success because you're going to spend a lifetime pursuing it." I just sat there in that moment and that really fell heavy on me and I recognized that I had never stopped and really sat down with Camila, my wife, and said, "What does success mean to us?"
You know, as I began to study this and explore this concept of what success means to you, what I found was that success should be the manifestation of your core values. Your core values are the things that are most important to you.
Your vision of success, or what we call your vision story, should be the manifestation of your core values.
As my wife and I started to do the heavy lifting and do the work, we recognized that our vision for success–we had adopted it. Somebody had yoked us with their vision of success, putting aside our own core values in the process.
Nikki Van Noy: I love that definition of success. I don't think I've ever heard it defined quite that way before.
Stephen Franson: Ultimately, success comes down to alignment of three things. Number one, it's your core values, which is what's most important to you. That's a very personal thing. This is an inside-out process. It's an unearthing. Nobody can tell you what it is. You have to dig in and if you share your life with somebody if you're married, or you have a significant other, you have got to do this together. It's a good exercise to do it separately and then come together and have a complete drag-out brawl to figure out exactly what the list is and in what order are the priorities–no, I'm just kidding.
It's a great thing to do with a glass of wine or three. Come up with this list that says, "Okay, this is really what's most important to us. How do we invest our time, energy, focus, and money?" That's really a great way to drill down and find out what your real core values.
Then your vision story is a story. It's like a manuscript of the movie called Your Success Story. You've got to be able to say, "Shut your eyes. I want you to see what I see. Let me tell you what success looks like," and there has to be alignment between your core values and your vision story. The vision story has to be the expression of those core values.
Then the third piece is your behaviors–how you choose to invest your time, energy, focus, and money.
Those three things have to be in alignment and that's really the definition of success in our world.
Nikki Van Noy: I'm curious, did you and your wife come up with your own markers of success separately and then come together? Or did you do it together?
Stephen Franson: Well, we did the exercise together, but separately, if you will. You go to that end of the table and I'll go to this end of the table and, I was toiling through mine and crumpling up papers and moving my list around. I came up with this list around achievements, significance, and abundance going through my list. This was on top of what we call the Core Four. I respectfully call them beauty pageant answers because these are the answers that everybody says if you ask them, "What are your core values," and they are faith, family, fun, and fitness.
We agreed that is our core four for our family. It's our faith, it's our fun, it's our family, and it's our fitness. On top of that, I had another list going, which was what I would consider the more achievement-oriented list, which was true to my nature. She came back with a list that was essentially, "Peace of mind, peace of mind, peace of mind…" Those were her five.
Nikki Van Noy: That's balance right there.
Stephen Franson: Yeah, exactly. I'm from Boston so sarcasm is my first language and I said, "So, peace of mind is important to you is what you're saying here?" What we did, we just sat down and what we recognized is, when I say, "freedom," that to her, means, "peace of mind." When I say, "abundance," that to her translates to "peace of mind," right?
Everything that I was identifying was the pathway to peace of mind. We essentially wrestled it back and forth and we came down and landed with that our core values as a couple are freedom, peace of mind, abundance, significance, and contribution.
Nikki Van Noy: Once you two really defined that, how did things start to shift?
Stephen Franson: It changed everything. Ultimately, what we did was we scrutinized our practice and what we recognized was that we didn't own a business, we owned a job. It was ironic because our motto was always, "We're in the business of saving lives and when business is good, everybody wins." The irony was we didn't own a business at all, we owned a job.
The truth is, any entrepreneur or business owner will tell you, it's actually the job owns you. The key to this is the difference between a job and a business–businesses are scalable, they're durable, and they're transferrable.
Job versus Business
Nikki Van Noy: How did you make that shift then? How do you get your way back out of that?
Stephen Franson: Well, you start looking around and you say, "Okay, I have a job and the job really has me, which means that it's not a business because businesses are scalable." When you look around and you say, "Okay, is my practice scalable?" Scalability means that you can do more, give more, love more, serve more, add more value, but it doesn't have to all be done by you. You can leverage other people and systems, communication and technology. Instead of running your business on brute force, you can run your business using leverage.
Durability means that you can give more, love more, serve more, do more, accomplish more, make a bigger impact, and make a bigger income even in your absence. Even if you're not in the place of business, you're going to continue to add value, which in the chiropractic space means that you bring on other professional chiropractors. You bring on other associate doctors. Even if you go home to be with your family for dinner time, or take a day off, or go on vacation, the practice doesn't screech to a halt.
You can continue to add value, even in your absence. Then, transferability means that you've built it to sell it. You actually created a sellable asset. You've created something that another party could come in–a successor could come in, look around and say, "I see this place as a business. It has value. I'd be eager to buy it and I could take it over and build it." Scalable, durable, and transferrable.
Nikki Van Noy: Okay. So, let's expand our scope here a little bit and speak to some of the problems that are shared by chiropractors specifically, and perhaps other private healthcare providers. How do I say that in the way that I should say it for these purposes?
Stephen Franson: Yeah, I think you're spot on. You're nailing it. Ultimately, anybody who owns a private practice, anybody who is really in the business of taking care of patients–we all experience the same joys and hardships, and the same challenges. Ultimately, as I said, the busier you get, your reward is the busier you get. A lot of people say, "The harder I work, the more I have to work, the harder I have to work."
I'm sure a lot of people feel that way. We definitely feel that when you own your own private practice and it really does start to manifest, it creates a lot of problems for people. Like I said, they fall away, their health is at risk, or their marriage, or they don't know their kids, or they can't go on vacation. It really starts to manifest in ways that derail their life.
Which, of course, competes with their ability to sustain a successful practice.
Nikki Van Noy: It strikes me as very sad just on a deeply human level when you're passionate about what you're doing and you believe in what you're doing and the power of it, and then you just sort of get worn down by the day-to-day practice of it.
Stephen Franson: Yeah, you're nailing it now, because that's literally what kept me up at night for years, once I figured it out. I would think, "All right, so now that we've nailed this, I have to share it." I need to get it to other doctors. The premise of the work that we do is that it's about having a remarkable practice, as part of a remarkable life, not instead of one. Ultimately, there are two things that need to happen. The doctor is going to look at their practice and they are going to turn that job into a business. They themselves have to go from being that owner-operator and turn themselves into a CEO.
Nikki Van Noy: In your experience, how difficult is that? What are some of the mindset shifts that you have to be able to make in making that transition?
Stephen Franson: That's the right question because you just combined two things there. The first part of it is taking a job and turning it into a business. That seems to be the easier part of this, because most of us say, "Give me a checklist. Give me a to-do list and I am going to knock that down." I said, "Okay, I got to do this and stop doing that and start doing that," and that is the easier thing. It is almost like, "Give me more work to do." It is a different type of work and we do get the work done.
But it is the second part of that, which is making that identity shift from the owner-operator and shifting to the CEO, that's really the tricky thing. It is a slippery slope because you've experienced success as an owner-operator, right? So, it is the brute force model of, "Just give it to me, I'll do it." By the time I train you to do it, I can do it myself and do it better. So, the owner-operator operates really on their own horsepower.
Of course, that's not scalable or not durable, by definition. To mature or to make the ascension to a CEO, they've really got to learn to take on the identity of a CEO, and they've got to learn to look for leverage, and leveraging other people and systems, processes and technology. You are always looking for leverage.
Nikki Van Noy: Okay, so in the course of your own experience, you have identified four elements that should be present to create what you call a remarkable system, in order to create a remarkable practice. Let us go ahead and share with listeners what those four things are, and just a little bit of the logic behind them, and why they're important.
Stephen Franson: I think it is important to simplify everything. I look at any situation that is overwhelming and just figure out a way to simplify it. So, we have simplified the business of chiropractic. I am sure this resonates with anybody in private practice and really in any business. Business comes down to four domains. It is attraction, conversion, retention, and team building.
Attraction is generating leads to your business. Conversion is, of course, sales. It is compelling people to take action and engage. Then retention, which is value delivery and creating greater value for your product or services, so people continue to consume it. Then team building. Team building is surrounding yourself with world class, team A players only. To be honest with you, the attraction, conversion, retention piece of it was my original content and for years, I was traveling the world teaching chiropractors about attraction, conversion, retention, and the systems to run their practice.
That would get their interest initially, but all of the side conversations ended up around their team. I love what Topgrading says here–that 95% of our problems are people problems. That is definitely true in chiropractic, and I am sure it is true in every other business. Team building has become the most important work that we do. It is the most important domain out of the four, in my opinion.
Nikki Van Noy: So, as you've begun to share this with other people in the field, have you run across any stories that really stand out to you about business owners who have been struggling and managed to turn things around and to create a remarkable practice?
Stephen Franson: Yeah, I love to say that this is not theory. We lived it out ourselves in our practice. What happens when you try to reproduce that somewhere else? And we have been teaching this to thousands of doctors now around the world and daily we get the stories of the doctor who was just wildly overwhelmed and they have taken on the role of the owner, and even expanded their job into a business, but they themselves have not made that big shift from owner-operator to CEO.
They find themselves in the middle of the lake, I like to say. They have left the shoreline, they swam in the middle of the lake, and now they are treading water trying to figure out what they do next. Our system, we call it the Rubrics Cube Transformation System. It really helps them get a handle on their business and their identity.
Once you help them get on the other side of this, what we call the black box–it is really a multicolored box, if you've ever seen a rubrics cube. When they get on the other side of that, and they have made that transition from job to business and from owner-operator to CEO, they can have that remarkable life.
Nikki Van Noy: And how about you? How have you and your wife's life changed since changing things around?
Stephen Franson: We do truly live a remarkable life. We have a remarkable business now. We actually sold the original Remarkable Practice just last year, which was like giving up your first child for adoption, but after 21 years, it was just time because our consulting company had grown so much. What was wonderful was we were able to sell our business, our practice, to one of our wonderful associate doctor couples and they took it over and grew it.
They have just been thriving with it. They are just the best people to take over our systems, as they were trained up in our systems, shared our vision and core values, and kept the culture going delivering excellent care. Now we are able to focus 100% on our next mission, which is to run The Remarkable Practice. Now, instead of caring for patients and helping them realize their potential, we work with chiropractors and help them realize theirs.
Nikki Van Noy: You have successfully scaled and left a legacy in the process, it sounds like.
Stephen Franson: Absolutely.
Nikki Van Noy: We love that. You know the thing that keeps running through my mind as you're talking is obviously the focus here is on the practitioners, but I have to think, as a patient myself, the patients somehow get a vibe from a place. I am curious if you heard about the patient experience transforming in any way as you shifted from working a job to being the CEO of a business.
Stephen Franson: There is no question about it and that is a great question. We use an expression, "Your practice is always a reflection of your energy." You know, when your energy is up, your practice is up. When your energy is flat, your practice is flat. When your energy is down, your practice is down. Everybody agrees with that and nobody can explain it, but they won't deny it either. This is an energetic being. This is an energetic organism and I am sure that is true for all businesses.
Energy really is everything and if you have a doctor or a business owner who is smoked, who is burnt out, stressed out, resents the practice because when they are at the practice they are thinking about their family, and when they're with their family, they are thinking about their business, nobody wants to go to see that person, definitely not somebody to be their health coach or their chiropractor or their doctor.
Patients want to see somebody who's successful. By successful, I am saying somebody who is actually living in alignment, their core values, their vision story, and their behavior and they are enjoying great health, they are enjoying a remarkable life. They are healthy and happy and excited and passionate to be at the office doing their work. They're not distracted, they're present. They are not exhausted, they are excited. That is what happens when you create a remarkable practice.
Nikki Van Noy: Amazing. This is the true essence of the word transformation.
Stephen Franson: We actually call it our transformation system.
Nikki Van Noy: Okay, so for private practice owners who are listening to this right now and maybe still in that space where they feel a little bit overwhelmed, what is the one thing they can do immediately, outside of picking up this book, to start to take a step in the right direction?
Stephen Franson: Yeah, overwhelm seems to be a chronic condition of any entrepreneur. Definitely, doctors, and especially private practice owners, you know overwhelm. I like to say that chiropractors don't starve, they drown. There is just so much particle movement and most of them are really in a survival mode every day and trying to survive every week and every month. Either they have the stress of lack, or the stress of abundance, but they're still really chronically stressed.
One of the first things I recommend that they do is get their footing with their vision story and really take the time to define what success looks like to you. Ask yourself, "What is that vision based on? Why do I consider that success and really what does success look like to us?" Like I said if they are sharing their life with somebody really do the heavy lifting and say, "What are our core values? What is most important to us and what does success look like to us based on those core values?"
Check yourself and say, "What is all the striving for?" Is the striving trying to achieve somebody else's vision of success or is it truly something that is resonant with what's most important to you? Because once you do get in alignment and you get clarity around all of that, clarity is the greatest accelerator. You let go of the things that don't serve you. You start saying yes to the right things and no to everything else, and you will find that you have boundless energy because of the clarity of exactly what you're trying to accomplish.
Nikki Van Noy: You said earlier on this talk how you and your wife adopted your definition of success. I have never heard it put exactly that way before but that really struck me. I think a lot of us can do this without being even remotely aware of it.
Stephen Franson: If nobody ever stops you and tells you that you actually have to sit down and do the heavy lifting of unearthing your core values and coming up with your own vision story of success, you are going to let the media or Instagram or your best friends or your worst friends tell you what success looks like. I think George Carlin said something about that. It was like, "We work to make more money to buy stuff that we don't want to impress people we don't like."
It was something along those lines–sorry George if I butchered that for you. You are probably rolling on your grave right now, but we all laughed when we said it because it is true, right? Great comedy is great comedy because it is the truth. At the end of the day, it is such a blessing to really get clear about what is most important to you and those around you and really stay focused on exactly what success looks like to you, because even when you have that level of clarity, it's going to be hard enough, but at least you're creating the remarkable life that you want.
Business is Business
Nikki Van Noy: Excellent, well I, as we just discussed earlier on, certainly have nothing to do with the healthcare field, but I feel there's a lot to take away from what you have said for all of us. So, thank you so much.
Stephen Franson: People are people, and business is business. I am so glad we're able to add some value and I am excited to get feedback. I've gotten so much great feedback from chiropractors reading this book and outside of my circle of friends and family who are not chiropractors. I really look forward to hearing from the other business owners that read the book. I'd love to get feedback.
Nikki Van Noy: Absolutely. My last question for you, is there anything you have not touched on yet that you want to be sure listeners know?
Stephen Franson: I think ultimately, to expand what you think is possible. Have fun with it. We operate inside of these constructs that come with our definition of success. I would encourage people that when it comes to creating your own vision story, have fun with it. Tap into some passion and just imagine that as you write this vision story out or you journal it out, that you are creating the manuscript for the movie called Your Success Story and you get to be the hero in it.
The hero in that story is the next iteration of you. It is not you now, it is the next iteration of you. The next iteration of you as a leader, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a doctor. Maybe the next iteration of you as a husband or as a wife or as a mother or as a father. Start thinking about that next iteration of you and who you need to become to be the leader who could predictably attract and sustainably lead that vision story.
It is such a great exercise to ask yourself questions such as, what would the doctor I am trying to become, what would she say right now? Or even what would the husband I am trying to become, what would he do right now? What would the father I am trying to become, what would he say right now? Checking yourself against your future best self as a leader is great because it creates this familiarity with this character out in front of you who has the attributes that you are trying to develop as a person and as a leader.
As you gain more familiarity with that person as a reference point, it is a gut check when you check yourself and your own behaviors, your own perspective or your own internal talk track and you say, "Is that how the leader that I am trying to become, is that how he would behave right now?" Or, "Is that how the doctor I am trying to become, is that how she would behave right now?" I hope that is a blessing to you guys because that's been a tool that's really helped accelerate our success.
Nikki Van Noy: I love that because it's also a constant reminder of who you are truly accountable to, which is yourself, at the end of the day.
Stephen Franson: That's right.
Nikki Van Noy: Great. All right, thank you so much for joining us today.
Stephen Franson: Well, it's my pleasure. This has been fun.
Listen to more authors about healthcare:
Oversaturated: Evan Allen
Healthcare is Making Me Sick: Scott Hesier
Raise Your Standards: Mark Evans
The Problem Isn't Their Paycheck: Grant Botma
Get Dr. Stephen Franson's new book, The Remarkable Practice: The Definitive Guide to Build a Thriving Chiropractic Business, Amazon.com
Connect with Stephen at The Remarkable Practice
No Barriers: Erik Weihenmayer
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels: Alex Epstein
Idea to Execution: Ari Meisel
Rethinking Hand Safety: Joe Geng
The Engagement Ring: Lee Ann Pond
The Golden Toilet: Steve Brown
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New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards
Wednesday, Apr. 11, 2018
"Diana: In Her Own Words," "Jane," "Genius," "Mosul" Among Grand Winners At NY Festivals Awards
New York Festivals® International Television & Film Awards announced the 2018 award-winners on Tuesday (4/10) at the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas. This ceremony honored the World's Best TV & Films and celebrated blockbuster entertainment from 40 countries around the globe.
Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017
Finalists Unveiled For New York Festivals International TV & Film Awards
New York Festivals® International Television & Film Awards announced its 2017 finalists. Grand Jury members from the international broadcast and film industry selected this year's finalists from entries submitted from 40 countries. Primetime entertainment, innovative documentaries,...
Friday, Apr. 22, 2016
New York Festivals' Grand Award Winners: "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History," "Earth is Yours" and "Y Gwyll/Hinterland"
New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards announced the 2016 competition's award-winning programming during a gala ceremony on April 19 at the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas.
"The Roosevelts: An Intimate History" Florentine Films USA was center stage earning the Grand...
ESPN, History, and Showtime Win Grand Honors At NY Festivals TV & Film Awards
New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards, now in its 58th year, announced the World's Best TV & Films winners last night at their gala event at the annual NAB Show in Las Vegas.
The Grand Jury panel awarded 145 Gold World...
Nick Gonzales
Jeremy Pinckert
Jerry Beck
Eno Freedman Brodmann
Entertainment One Ltd.
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Toronto Police Services Board Thanks Departing Board Member and Welcomes New Board Member
TORONTO: The Toronto Police Services Board today announced the end of Board Member Uppala Chandrasekera's term. Ms. Chandrasekera has been a provincial appointee to the Board since September 2017.
The Director of Public Policy at the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), Ms. Chandrasekera has been a dedicated champion in leading initiatives focused on mental health and addictions as well as equity and anti-racism. Her extensive background and experience in mental health have been instrumental in developing a more effective and more compassionate response to people experiencing mental health and addictions challenges, both in the community, and within our organization.
As Co-Chair of both the Board's Anti-Racism Advisory Panel (ARAP) and the Mental Health and Addictions Advisory Panel (MHAAP), Ms. Chandrasekera consistently worked to bring community and policing voices together constructively, to engage in meaningful dialogue and, ultimately, to make improvements in how police services are delivered. In addition, as Co-Chair of ARAP, she helped to lead the development of the Board's Race-Based Data Collection, Analysis and Public Reporting Policy – the first of its kind in Canada – cementing the Board's commitment to the elimination of racial bias and the promotion of equity, fairness and non-discriminatory police service delivery in Toronto. Ms. Chandrasekera also led the efforts to develop a unique monitoring framework for the implementation of recommendations arising out of the Inquest into the Death of Andrew Loku.
In commenting on Ms. Chandrasekera's time on the Board, Chair Jim Hart said, "Ms. Chandrasekera was the first ever mental health and addictions professional to be appointed to our Board. Her role on the Board was a unique and powerful one, bringing both her tremendous passion and expertise, and a compassionate lens through which she viewed even the most challenging issues. She approaches everything with drive and determination, achieving concrete results by consensus in areas of great importance, and brought community voices to the table that had not been there before. Her contribution was incredible and there is no doubt her legacy will positively impact the Board's work as we continue to move forward."
The Board today also announced the appointment of Ms. Lisa Kostakis, a committed community leader who works to harness the power of the public to create meaningful partnerships and build community capacity. Appointed to the Board by the Province of Ontario for a term of three years, Ms. Kostakis is currently the Executive Director of Albion Neighbourhood Services, an organization offering housing, immigration and counselling services, as well as Boys & Girls Club recreational and educational programming, based on a "Model for Success" for marginalized children and youth.
A graduate of York University with a degree in Psychology, a graduate of Ryerson University with a Social Worker degree and a Council member of the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers, Ms. Kostakis has 30 years of experience within the non-for profit sector working and leading organizations throughout the City of Toronto. Ms. Kostakis was also one of the Founders/Steering Committee Members of the FOCUS (Furthering Our Community by Uniting Services) Rexdale table in 2012, an innovative, collaborative multi-disciplinary risk-driven approach, co-led by the Toronto Police Service, the City of Toronto and the United Way, which has since been expanded City-wide and has seen remarkable achievement in improving community resiliency and wellbeing.
Commenting on Ms. Kostakis' appointment, Chair Hart stated, "Ms. Kostakis is a valuable addition to the Board at this time as we focus on greater community capacity building, working in true dynamic partnership with communities to recognize their assets, strengthen their skills and grow alongside each other to better meet the needs and expectations of the public."


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Publisher - every side, every angle
Nelly Arrested After Allegations of Rape
ENTERTAINMENTWORLD
By Cephas Larbi	 On Oct 8, 2017
Cornell Haynes Jr., better known as the rapper Nelly, was taken into custody Saturday in Washington state after a woman told police he raped her.
Police arrested Nelly in the early morning and took him to a jail in Des Moines, Washington, according to a report from the police department in nearby Auburn.
He was booked for investigation of rape in the second-degree and released a few hours later.
The report says a woman called 911 at 3:48 a.m. Saturday to report the alleged assault, which she says occurred on Nelly's tour bus.
Police said Nelly, 42, had performed at the White River Amphitheater in King County just hours before the phone call was made.
He was arrested "after patrol officers investigated the incident," according to the report.
Nelly tweeted Saturday afternoon that he is "completely innocent" and confident he will be vindicated.
"I am beyond shocked that I have been targeted with this false allegation," he wrote. "I am confident that once the facts are looked at, it will be very clear that I am the victim of a false allegation."
Nelly's attorney, Scott Rosenblum, said the "allegation is devoid of credibility and is motivated by greed and vindictiveness."
"I am confident, once this scurrilous accusation is thoroughly investigated, there will be no charges," Rosenblum said in a statement. "Nelly is prepared to address and pursue all legal avenues to redress any damage caused by this clearly false allegation."
Nelly was once one of the reigning kings of hip-hop. He shot to fame nearly 20 years ago with the track "Country Grammar."
During the height of his career, he won three Grammy awards and regularly appeared on the Billboard 200.
The rapper has had previous run-ins with the law. In 2015, Nelly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, according to E! News.
Cephas Larbi
Gov't Allocates $45.7m to Expand Water Supply Systems
Judiciary Holds Church Service to Usher in Legal Year
New Banger! DJ Wyse drops 'Mame Sanka' to begin 2020
Deal to host Afro Nation for 5 years in Ghana needless – Ola Michael
New Banger! Emelia Brobbey Out With Odo Electric ft Wendy Shay
Enyonam Manye set to host BizTrends Show Season 6 on GHOne TV
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Mohamad Hafez: Homesick Syrian artist makes miniature war scenes
New Haven-based architect recreates the streets of Damascus in tiny form, with the living and dead side by side.
by Aina Khan
In New Haven, Connecticut, an inconspicuous art studio has become a gateway to Syria.
Jutting out from its walls are miniature facades of the old neighbourhoods of Damascus, its pointed archways and ornate gold-painted doors, its washing lines strewn with shreds of "aghabbani", traditional silk cloth embroidered with gold and silver threads.
Then there are its blackened apartments blasted open with shrapnel revealing a single chair sitting in the rubble. Here the living and the dead, the past and the present are juxtaposed side by side, whispering of nostalgia for the Syria of old.
Hafez's work was rooted in nostalgia but after the war became a way to depict tragedy [Courtesy: Rodney Nelson]
The studio belongs to Mohamad Hafez, a Syrian-American artist and architect.
Taken by the everyday features of Syria decimated by the civil war, which began in 2011, Hafez straddles two worlds.
He is both a corporate architect designing skyscrapers, and an artist recreating visceral dioramas of his homeland.
Hafez, a Syrian who grew up in Saudi Arabia, sources his material from the Middle East [Courtesy: Mohamed Hafez]
Hafez gestures to a wall of shelves crammed with wires, dried flowers, wood, and an assortment of junk to the eyes of any visitors. "That wall of shelves contains the ingredients of the day," he says.
Miniature car models are a regular feature in some of these streetscapes.
"Similar to Cuba where we see a lot of old cars, in Syria we have old Soviet cars. Peugeots, Renos, Mercedes and BMWs are a very big part of the Syrian fabric. Generations have grown up around these cars.
"The fabric I use in my laundry lines, called aghabanni, comes from Syria. In my last trip before the war, I asked a textile merchant to give me some of his scrap fabrics. Each little piece is attached somehow to a nostalgic memory of something."
'If you can't go home, maybe you could recreate home'
Hafez grew up in Saudi Arabia where his father practiced as a physician. His work stemmed from homesickness and depression when he arrived in the United States to study architecture at Iowa State University on a single-entry visa in 2003.
"I was in the middle of corn-fields in the dead of winter with nothing to do. I couldn't go home because my student visa was stamped as a single-entry only. One night, I collected scrap materials used for architectural models, anything from basswood, to plaster, to plastic, to styrene.
The Muslim travel ban that we all know of today existed many years ago.
Mohamad Hafez, artist
"I had this pile of what people might consider garbage, and I started toying around with it. Nine hours passed by, I looked at the clock and it was about three in the morning when I just finished modelling a little façade from old Damascus. That caused a little bulb to turn on in my brain. It taught me that if you can't go home, maybe you could recreate home."
"The Muslim travel ban that we all know of today existed many years ago."
Hafez is not referring to US President Donald Trump's ban, but the controversial visa tracking programme - NSEERS (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System).
Implemented by the Bush administration following the September 11 attacks, the programme required non-citizen male visa holders aged 16 or older to register their fingerprints and their photographs. They were also subject to interrogation and had to regularly report to immigration officers.
Of the 25 nations mandated to register, all but one was a Muslim-majority country. Hafez's single-entry visa meant he could not return to Syria without risking being readmitted back into the US.
It wasn't until 2011, following the start of the Arab Spring, that Hafez finally returned. He had been asked to pitch a project in neighbouring Lebanon for an architectural firm.
After war broke out in Syria, Hafez felt his creativity stall for about two years [Courtesy: Mohamad Hafez]
The visa reissuing process, which should have only taken a few weeks, dragged on for nearly two months, but Hafez relished the opportunity to live in the chaos of Damascus.
"I was so thirsty for Syrian culture, I was in heaven," Hafez says. "Damascus is considered the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. It has architectural elements that are biblical, Islamic, Greek, Roman, all side by side. As a Western educated architect, I was just blown away with the amount of heritage on the ground.
"I would jump into taxi cabs, coffee shops, and record the conversations. I would go to the courtyard of the Omayyad Mosque where you could hear children running, pigeons flying, and the recitation of the Quran overlapping a call to prayer. All I did every day was walk around old Damascus, recording everyday life with my phone."
Civil war in miniatures
Shortly after he returned to the United States, the Syrian civil war began.
The shock paralysed Hafez's creativity for two years, but once again, emotional trauma became a wellspring for his creativity. What began as a cathartic way to remember home with nostalgia resulted in a complex project, rooted in the destruction caused by the war.
"When I'm building these things, especially the war pieces, I can't tell you I'm 100 percent consciously there," he says.
I start with looking at a lot of dramatic photos of the destruction, of people that have passed away. I dim the lights, I play acoustic Syrian music, and I burn a lot of bakhour and incense. It doesn't take me too long before I have built a very nostalgic and sad emotional state.
The smoke of burning incense curls up towards a collage of photographs of Syrian men, women and children from before and after the war, scattered across the walls.
"I start with looking at a lot of dramatic photos of the destruction, of people that have passed away. I dim the lights, I play acoustic Syrian music, and I burn a lot of bakhour and incense. It doesn't take me too long before I have built a very nostalgic and sad emotional state and I am in this cloud that is no longer in New Haven.
"With all these embodied emotions and sadness that I have inside of me, I take it immediately and start building. None of these pieces are designed before-hand. They are designed and built on the spot."
The voice of Syrian musician Hamza Shakkur and the scent of strong Arabian coffee fill the air of the studio.
Were it not for the snow drifting down outside, this art studio could well resemble a bustling cafe in Damascus.
Tackling anti-immigration sentiment through art
In what has become an increasingly anti-immigration and anti-Muslim landscape in the United States, Hafez's work has taken on new resonance as a vehicle for dialogue about immigration.
I don't design work to cater to my echo-chambers. I am trying to reach out to the opposite mind-set. How do you do that if you get introduced as an Arab-Syrian artist called Mohamed? You are immediately faced with judgement.
Explaining the responsibility he feels as a Syrian-American contemporary artist, he says: "My artwork has put me in places and situations where I was the first and only Muslim people ever interacted with. I don't design work to cater to my echo-chambers. I am trying to reach out to the opposite mind-set. How do you do that if you get introduced as an Arab-Syrian artist called Mohamed? You are immediately faced with judgement. Hearts and ears will be shut against you. This is where the art has to do its work. I let the work engage people on an emotional level, and so I learned to speak with my mouth shut.
"In this day and age where we have a Muslim travel ban, it is very important to tell people that we must not allow history to repeat itself. These laws are not abstract laws that just get written in paper. Such laws affect real people's lives."
As well as portraying the devastation of war, Hafez has tackled issues stemming from conflict such as the refugee crisis [Courtesy: Mohamad Hafez]
His most recent work, Baggage Series, tells the narrative of the refugee crisis, of the physical and psychological trauma experienced by families forced to flee their homeland.
Sitting inside antique suitcases are miniatures depicting what migrants may have left behind, from ornate Victorian interiors to little shoes abandoned in rubble.
Hafez knows only too well the effect of the refugee crisis; his own sister, also an architect, fled Syria for Sweden.
"There's a perception that immigrants and refugees have no established lives. What I'm trying to do is to say that these houses held established lives, they held stories in them, and they supported many families who had dreams and aspirations."
Hafez has focused his recent work on the plight of refugees, using their imagined left-behind belongings as a way to show their struggle [Courtesy: Rodney Nelson]
Aina Khan
Aina J Khan focuses on race, faith and identity. She's reading a masters in religion in politics at SOAS.
@ ainajkhan
Syria's War