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The Bony King Of Nowhere
The Bony King Of Nowhere
CD / Digital
Helicopter / Cargo
25.01.2013
The Bony King Of Nowhere – live
Sa, 23.02.2013 - Rostock-Helgas Stadtpalast
So, 24.02.2013 - Hamburg-Knust Bar
Mo, 25.02.2013 - Berlin-Monarch
Di, 26.02.2013
- München-Südstadt
www.target-concerts.de
On the official presentation of “Eleonore”, the second album by
The Bony King of Nowhere, Bram Vanparys, the man behind
the alter-ego, surprised us by dryly stating that the follow-up
album was almost finished. A good one and a half years later
this third album, simply called “The Bony King of Nowhere” is
now available. In the meantime Vanparys wrote the
soundtrack for the Walloon film “Les Géants” by Bouli Lanners,
which garnered him the Margritte du Cinéma award for best
soundtrack, scored a radiohit in Wallonie with “The Stranger”,
toured across Europe and found peace and inspiration by
means of travelling, nature and… organic farming.
Even though The Bony King of Nowhere has always been a
one-man project for Bram Vanparys, he had to rely on likeminded musicians to help him
record his compositions and perform them during live shows. For his third album, however,
Bram does it all by himself for the first time. All of the nine songs on “The Bony King of
Nowhere” are acoustic gems without refrains, vocal harmonies or drums. At all times, the
music is entirely in service of the lyrics, which has made it a timeless folk record rooted in the
tradition of greats like Leonard Cohen, Townes van Zandt and the unavoidable Bob Dylan.
Nearer to home there’s a close kinship with the poetic singer-songwriter craft of Lieven
Tavernier.
For the recordings of his third album the Ghent singer-songwriter made a retreat to the
unsightly Mirwart, a very small village near Saint-Hubert in the Ardennes forests. Freed from
the daily humdrum and superficiality he would stay there in total isolation for two weeks to
write songs and put them to tape. However, that plan wasn’t as spotless as he had hoped.
Unsatisfied with the result after eight days (and nights) of recording Vanparys makes a radical
decision and mercilessly deletes all his recordings in order to start over afresh. That tabula
rasa worked: inspired after two days of wandering about the woods he records the definitive
versions of eight out of the nine new songs during one long, creative night.
“The Bony King of Nowhere” is the result of that one wonderful night in June. Only the
opening track, "Across The River" is an earlier recording that simply could not be missed.
Vanparys wrote it almost immediately after the studio sessions for “Eleonore”, as a pure and
simple counterbalance to the more fully arranged songs on that album. It touched a nerve
with anyone who heard it. Encouraged by the many positive reactions that particular song got,
Vanparys started to think of recording an acoustic solo album all by himself. In a way, the
song proved to be the trigger for this album.
The songs “Night of Longing”, reminiscent of Dylan during “Desolation Row”, and
“Travelling Man” are also from the same period. The last song wouldn’t have been out of
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place on the “Anthology of American Folk Music”, a much-praised compilation of traditional
American folk-blues- and country music from the 20’s and 30’s. The song’s melody sounds so
classic and familiar that it’s a miracle nobody had thought of it before. It’s a mystery even to
the writer himself: ”suddenly that song was just there, I only needed to capture it.”
The disarmingly honest lyrics form the beating heart of this album. Whether it’s about a
stifling love affair (“Valerie”, by far the darkest song on the album) or about yearning for the
unreachable (“Another Day is Done”), the sober use of words is striking. Their insidious
simplicity makes the message come out even stronger. Vanparys cites the poetry by Arthur
Rimbaud as a particular source of inspiration. The spirit of the 19th century poet can be felt
throughout “Wild Flowers”, a song that creates a maximum of images with a minimum of
words. The singer himself regards it as his best composition.
The rattling “Lonesome Girl”, which originally had a good 30 couplets, is a bit of an odd one
out. It portrays the impressions of a solo tour through Italy. A gaudy cast of colorful and
historic figures show up in the song: from Hannibal to gloomy fortune-tellers to Mona Lisa. But
the homesick musician has only one thing on his mind: “I can only think of that lonesome girl
of mine”. A similar story can be found in the melancholic “Rain Falls Down on Mirwart”, a
song about (and written during) his solitude in the Ardennes.
It seems like the Ghent based singer would prefer never to leave his home but nothing could
be farther from the truth. Vanparys-the-songwriter needs the outdoors in order to be able to
create. During a short period he struggled with his life as a professional musician. The
touching closing song “On My Way Home” is about that period of doubt between life and
labor. To Vanparys, travelling and work in the outdoors turned out to be the solution for his
short-lived writer’s block. He now works on an organic farm for a couple of days a week
because: “body and mind are connected. Inspiration only comes when you’re physically
working. If you don’t go outside every now and then your body goes rigid and your soul and
mind grow lonely and tired.” Ultimate goal: his own farm with a built-in recording studio. The
very last line of this album goes: “I wanna buy a nice farm / and have a garden / full of
flowers.” It’s a beautiful thought, touching and sincere.
Beautiful, touching and sincere: that’s The Bony King of Nowhere (man, band and album) in a
nutshell.
http://www.thebonykingofnowhere.be
http://www.facebook.com/thebonykingofnowhere
VERSTÄRKER – 030 3198803-0 Fax.: 030 3198803-20, Dieffenbachstr. 33, 10967 Berlin
info@verstaerker.com http://www.verstaerker.com