OU

“OU” is the result of the collaboration of two atypical creators. Media artist Bob Meanza (“Cicadas”, 2013) met sitar player Filipe Dias De in 2012 and started a cycle of musical performances based on improvisation and live electronics.

In Berlin, city of electronic music, the two were moving through different languages: Mediterranean background and Indian roots, with a Mitteleuropean perspective. Their music was the sound of a hypothetic new world, where machines have grown old like all other myths and traditions, and have simply become part of the human folklore. In this world it is normal that a laptop and a sitar meet by the river, and start jamming on ancient patterns.
This special sonic place is what the name OU refers to. A name with no precise meaning, a sound that can emerge in different languages (like “or” in Portuguese, “where” in French) or can simply be the distant call of Sicilian fishermen, which resonates in the last track of the CD.

The project OU matured in Germany and made its way on the road, direction south, thanks also to artist Marco Mendeni (who collaborated on the visual side), on a tour that culminated at the Robot Festival 2013, in Bologna. Between shows, a four-hour non-stop performance was recorded in Berlin: the album is the result of this session. It was an extensive musical flow, with live electronics applied on Dias De’s prepared sitar. Editing and recomposing this material, Bob Meanza produced the final album, as a journey into a possible sound folklore.