ABOUT BATTERIE DU VERRE (the producer)


Batterie du Verre
Pseudonym used by Soenke Duewer relating to his activities as a producer, for Ensemble Du Verre, Energie Du Verre and more to come.


ABOUT ENERGIE DU VERRE (the solo project)


Energie du Verre
Latest alter-ego of Soenje Duewer, and up to now club-orientated project, in which he performs as a DJ in clubs as well as with changing live setups on stage

Soenke Duewer aka Batterie du Verre - let's start in the early 90s in then legendary Mojo Club Hamburg - young Du Verre the jazz drummer an composer, playing live drums along with Germany's hottest dancefloor act -hipness is being defined differently - be honest, borderliners face a great deal of intolerance from whichever side - ask a jazz player and then talk to club and electro producers - you'll find out they're worlds apart and (no offence, just plain experience...) haven't got a clue of what the other one is talking about...- du Verre knew - searched and found musicians who also knew - did you ever find a needle in the haystack? - du Verre did - players who were willing to sit between the chairs... 1999 - Groove Galaxi - du Verre's project with a lot of funky clubsound elements, but still kind of a "authentic" Jazzband working in cooperation with the Mojo Club and various other DJs - playing Jazz on a high level, but without the nerve wrecking doo bee doo bee scoopy doo - enhancing the spectrum of clubs all over Germany/Austria/Switzerland aswell as events like the Jazzport Festival Hamburg, Jazzfest Leverkusen, Jazz Baltica - interested in some Groove Galaxi stuff? - check out the Mojo Sampler Vol. 9 (Never Felt So Free) or the Brazilectro Compilation Vol. 6, and if you still haven't got enough, listen to one of four CDs produced between 2000 and 2005... Along the way and working more and more sample based du Verre started composing and producing music for various short films and commercials for TV and cinema like Sesame Street... 2003 - Ensemble Du Verre - Du Verre required more experimental space, new structures, extended sound options - how do you combine ECM and drum & bass? - floating freely, opening to all sorts of influences, no musical limitations - we all think in patterns, too limited - extracting his personal essence of what others were playing for him, leaving beaten tracks towards new directions - using the material of virtuoso jazz players, slicing it, tearing it to pieces, putting it back together following his intuition rather than the do's and the do not's of the jazz genre - what next? "Facing, Tranparent" - how do you perform the naked truth? - du Verres answer was a trio solution with trumpet, double bass and himself on drums and electronics - e.d.v. made a fine start supporting Bugge Wesseltoft on his 2004 Germany tour, leaving the audience and the Norwegian colleagues totally flashed... 2004 - Ensemble Du Verre - new concept with internationally known vocal artists such as Ursula Rucker, Sidsel Endresen and Torun Eriksen - "Sing Me Something" including a Remix of Bugge Wesseltoft - Ursula Rucker's immediate response: inviting du Verre to produce a track for her 2005 CD "Ma.. At Mama"... 2005 - Energie Du Verre - touring with the Mojo Club on drums and on laptop du Verre presents his own stuff (the new Jitterbug experience...the audience and co DJs mesmerized...) initiating the new and uncompromising Energie du Verre project - his favourite dance grooves stuffed with 30s and 40s Schellack samples - enough jazz to keep the conaisseur's head nodding, yet the dance crowd fascinated by irresistable rhythms - keeping his old passion of drumming (live) alive - presenting a highly praised 4 track vinyl as a taster for his "Dictionary of Dance Rhythms"...

Links :
energie-du-verre.com
myspace.com/energieduverre


ABOUT ENSEMBLE DU VERRE (the band)


Ensemble du Verre
Jazz project, founded in 2003, performing live -until today- with trumpet, double bass, drums and computer

Claas Ueberschär : Trumpet/Keyboards/FX
Daniel Cordes : Double Bass/Voice/FX
Sönke Düwer : Drums/Percussion/Electronics

When Soenke Duewer , founder of Ensemble du Verre, was invited to play a gig at a club night by the makers of - though still at their beginning - the today legendary Mojo Club in 1992, nobody was aware that an intense and ongoing musical relationship would arise from that first encounter (last fall Duewer aka Batterie Du Verre accompanied the Mojo Club "Feeling Good Tour 2005" playing both drums and laptop). For the last 14 years Duewer has played frequently in the Mojo Club or on tour with the Mojo DJs with all sorts of formations, from solo to jazz quartet, from pure acoustic sound to laptop and electronics. Here he has discovered both freedom and space to develop his unique personal sound.
In 2002, after having released several albums with his band Groove Galaxi, which he had set up in 1999 and which played as support for George Benson and Pat Metheny and on various international jazz festivals such as the "Leverkusener Jazztage" or "Jazz Baltica", he started composing music which after some years of jazz and club sound should sound more personal and intimate. He produced first versions (basic tracks) of beats, melodies and harmonies and recorded several musician friends playing along with the material they were listening to. The result is documented on the debut cd of the project he named "Ensemble Du Verre", called "facing, transparent".

Musical influences from Norway (Nils Petter Molvaer, Sidsel Endresen, Jaga Jazzist, Bugge Wesseltoft) and England (Matthew Herbert, Cinematic Orchestra, Wagon Christ, Aphex Twin) cant be ignored, Nu Avantgarde Jazz, E-Jazz or Jazz No Jazz are terms designed to describe this specific sound. Sampling, cut & paste and grain synthesis are merely a few of the working methods used to shape and reshape improvisations, song structures and sound sculptures. Sharply cut vocal samples are followed by drones and dub grooves, drum & bass is hand-played while the trumpet is being transformed into a cloud of sound, creating a stylistically unlimited overall sound. When in fall 2003 Fante Records became severely interested in his work, Duewer started looking for musicians capable of performing his music live on stage. In Claas Ueberschaer on trumpet and Daniel Cordes on double-bass Soenke Duewer (alias Batterie Du Verre) found two players who, until today, complete the "Ensemble Du Verre" - three acoustic instruments and electronics, equally complementing one another.
In May 2004 "e.d.v." toured through Germany supporting Bugge Wesseltoft and afterwards played in numerous clubs and on several festivals. Besides some memorable German-Norwegian soccer encounters the co-operation with Bugge Wesseltoft resulted in a remix produced by the Norwegian star keyboarder taken from the cd "facing, transparent" for the upcoming album "Sing Me Something".

"Sing Me Something", as one can tell by the title, is about singing. For this album Soenke Duewer could win some of his favourite vocalists to sing on a track. Amongst them there are such renowned artists like Torun Eriksen, Ursula Rucker and Sidsel Endresen, but also some shooting stars of the German jazz scene like Michael Schiefel and Britta-Ann Flechsenhar, they all left their voices on a song. The album also illustrates the further development of the "e.d.v." style. The music appears to be more outlined, more colourful, but also more compact, because the only guests are the vocalists. Instrumentally everything is played by Duewer, Ueberschaer and Cordes, followed by a long and intense procedure in which Du Verre successfully managed to integrate the singers into his "e.d.v." - electrified, moved, woven into the music - without depriving them of their individual characters. Out came fascinating creative music, difficult to lable and refusing to be pigeonholed. Thus the music combines apparent opposites, being exciting and relaxed at the same time, clearly structured and yet in a constant flux, virtual instrumentally complex and yet remarkably human in its simplicity.

Links :
ensemble-du-verre.com
myspace.com/ensembleduverre