“Echoes From The Borderline” – The Live Album & The Photobook
To celebrate the 10th birthday of our debut album (“Gee Whiz But This Is a Lonesome Town”, published in october 2007), we’ve decided to release, for the first time, a live record: “Echoes from the Borderline” – 24 songs recorded on stage, by the band and their faithful sound engineers, through the 800 concerts performed during those ten years of touring.
A wild ride across the planet, 514’000 kilometers and 25 countries, going back and forth between France and Japan, through India and Australia, the U.S. and all corners of Europe… But what remains of all that time spent, of all the travels, the sounds, the experiences, the encounters? Just a handful of songs, chaotic memories, ephemeral traces and forgotten tracks: street sounds, captured by Arthur on his tape recorder, analog photographs taken by Zim every single day, documenting the dislocated space-time of the tour…
For years, these precious recordings and images have been waiting, hidden in our archives. This anniversary is our opportunity to finally bring them back to life, to hand them back to the audience that witnessed these moments and brought their live energy to the songs.
For us, this past decade has also seen the birth of our micro-label Air Rytmo, that we created to ensure we had the necessary freedom for our artistic choices, in deciding how we write songs, how we record them and how we manufacture our records: Often in the margins, always out of time, flying below the record industry’s radar, our fragile airplane only stayed in the air thanks to the public: relying on pre-orders to launch the making of the records, following the word-of-mouth from the audiences that supported us from concert to concert… that’s why today we want to pursue this approach and this tight bond with the listeners, through this crowdfunding project, to help us maintain this independent and cohesive spirit.
If the Ulule project reaches its goal, this live album will be released in four different formats: Double Digital Album, with a pdf booklet / Double-CD, with a 48-page photo-booklet / Triple-Vinyl 12-inch record / Large-format 200-page Photobook, containing the pictures shot by Zim during the tour (and including the 2 live CDs). The Triple-Vinyl and the Photobook will be united to form the “Live-Set”, a complete account, both sonic and visual, of the experience of this ten-year tour, as seen from the inside.
To achieve this project, we had to dive into our 200 recorded concerts, only to choose -among hundreds of hours- the best 24 titles, to tell the story of this musical journey… Then, we entrusted our sound engineers to mix the album, Zim Moriarty to design the artwork and the graphics, in order to get on with the production of the CDs and their booklets, of the vinyls and the Photobooks.
We wish to produce 20’000 Double-CDs, 5’000 Triple-Vinyls, and 1’000 Photobooks. Our sound engineers and the manufacturing of the records are currently being paid. Now we need your help to produce a minimum of 1000 Photoboks. Among the 26’000€ requested :
– 8% will be deduced as fees for Ulule,
– 20% as VAT,
The remaining 19’000€ would finance the production itself (editing and printing of the photographs, graphic design, printing of the book, paper & materials). The more funding we attain, the more books we produce. Were the objective to be reached, we would announce an additional reward very soon…
Here are the different rewards that you will be able to get by participating to the Ulule project :
Moriarty is a French/American musical collective founded in 1995, with four albums (sold over 300,000 copies), an international tour of over 800 concerts, and numerous musical projects, including 3 theater-play soundtracks, 3 movie soundtracks, and collaborations with various artists (Emily Loizeau, Fitzcarraldo Sessions, Christine Salem, Mama Rosin, Moriba Koïta… ).
In 2010, Moriarty also founded its independent production and music publishing label, Air Rytmo, based in Paris, which will be releasing the live album project. This small structure (the five founding members of the group, their manager, and only two employees) allows them to keep their creative independance, maintain their artistic control over production, take financial risks (measured ones!), and establish a close relationship with their audience (through personalized work on their albums, often handcrafted by the members of the group themselves).
You can follow the group on social networks, on their facebook page, their twitter account and their own website.
“… All the years went down the drain / yet the song remained the same…”