MusicPrint
Painting with sounds would approximately paraphrase the philosophy of the artist couple Leo Schmidt / Hanna Michel.
And probably not by chance "Leo" Philipp Schmidt does create sculptures and also knows handling the color palette.
Long ago, the activity of the educated person defined itself in the so-called seven free arts the "Artes liberales", which count among the basic knowledge of the antiquity and the Middle Ages. There is something noticeable from this integral opinion of art on the exclusive label Valle Venia which is operated with rare intensity and vigour by Johanna Michel and Hermann Schmidt since 1988. The quota with which the couple pursues their various activities every single day must astonish. Some would give up with such a day program. But where a will is, there also seems to be a way. Obviously their fulltime job as M.D. leaves still time to indulge the real passion: the multi-media art investigation. While Michel writes film scripts and shoots films, Leo Schmidt works as a musician and composer, as an architect and painter. The experiences and impressions from the various areas of both partners then flow together in common projects.
"We always work project-related " declares Hanna Michel," this means if the pieces are composed we contact certain people and all of us then come together. Our musicians come from a multicultural environment. In this variety all our meetings take place. Mostly, the real recordings then last for a week. We are always very careful at the choice of all artists involved. It is prerequisite for a common work that we also get along with people."
Thanks to such a happy chance of inner soul relationship that the Valle Venia operators have combined forces with the English pop singer Sam Brown. The new album is called fragile and the title already tells what one might expect: sound miniatures which are soft and just fragile with the road holding voice of Sam Brown reminding sometimes of Sally Oldfield.
With the first listening it becomes clear that someone has spent more thoughts about the way of the arrangements as it is common with conventional pop productions. The fund of acoustic instruments like cembalo, cello, the piano, violins and guitars awards to the whole seldom found melancholy within the ease. The audience is invited to let themselves carry away to an unlimited sound world. The experience of Leo Schmidt as an architect obviously takes effect: "For me music is the fourth dimension someone has to discover. It is the medium which unites time and space"
Tom Fuchs
