Deine Blauen Augen

Three copies of The Muse

How I designed the CD artwork for The Muse

While I was arranging a Josip Hatze song for my classical EP Serenada, my forthcoming oeuvre The Muse arrived from the CD factory on Thursday night. After unpacking the parcel I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve as some of you may have noticed on my Facebook site, on Twitter or Google+. In my opinion the CD looks beautiful and even a little bit better than its predecessor Swinging Berlin! Well, it’s a question of personal taste and I don’t want to sound narcissistic here. Nevertheless, it involves a lot of work to create professional-looking CD artwork. Today I’m telling you how it works.

At first you must find a realiable factory to print CDs at reasonable prices. I always order them at the same company which is specialized in smaller editions. On their website they provide samples having the right measurements for the cover image, the booklet, the inlay and the CD label. Customers can download these samples for Adobe Photoshop – the well-known photo software I’ve always used to design the outer appearance of my music.

Booklet picture of the CD The MuseAs my recent press photos focus on romantic sunsets in Croatia, it was easy to conceive an appropriate layout for The Muse on CD. The booklet conceals one of the marvelous images taken by Christina Katz (please also read “The Muse“ press photos in the making). Page 4 of the booklet and the back of the CD feature my spectacular sunset pictures I personally shot on the beach of Starigrad-Paklenica. By the way, I didn’t need Photoshop to increase the brightness of the colours. When you look at the CD, you will see the sunset through my eyes. Of course nothing will ever be able to compete with the original moment of taking the photos, though!

Until now The Muse has not left my territory, except for one copy: Although it’s a national holiday in Germany, my vocal coach Snezana Nena Brzakovic gave me a lesson this morning. Since she helped me translate the song “Deine Blauen Augen“ into “Tvoje Plave Oči“, she had to be the first one to hold The Muse in her hands. 🙂

The official record release of The Muse is on October 30th. If you preorder it before this date, I will give you my EP Alien Pop from 2013 for free! I decided to sell the EP for 8 euros per copy (plus package and shipping). Soon you will be able to order my music on this website, but you can also contact me via Facebook or write an email to info@godiva-records.biz. I’m going to add my signature to each CD!

CD The Muse and Anna Aliena on the cover

Swinging Berlin Meets The Muse

Recently I’ve revealed plenty of interesting facts about the last muse who helped me finish my forthcoming record The Muse. However, there is more to my new EP than blue eyes, unfulfilled longing and Croatia! 😉

In fact, the whole story started at my Swinging Berlin record release party in the most popular of all overrated capitals. Just as all the other records from my portfolio as a solo artist, Swinging Berlin had been inspired by somebody. Contrary to my expectations, that person appeared at the venue although I had not invited him.

In his presence I felt torn. Inside of me there was a mixture of raging anger and a certain delight to see him again. Yes, when I went on stage, I actually wanted to slap him in the face, but at the same time I enjoyed singing in front of him. He was even naughty enough to take pictures of my performance! We didn’t talk except for saying hello and goodbye.

After all, I was happy about having created Swinging Berlin. Furthermore its muse had the magical power to fill me up with even more inspiration. In August 2014 I wrote “The Muse” and its German version “Die Muse”. It took a while to arrange the track because my motivation had almost reached point zero …

Last winter around Christmas destiny gave me another worthwhile encounter which resulted in “Sasha”, but afterwards all my attempts to compose more music were meant to fail. I was no longer satisfied with the outcome of my endeavours!

One morning in January I woke up before 5 a.m. without being able to fall asleep again. Thus, I was wondering where to travel in summer … What a great coincidence! A couple of hours later my holiday was booked out and I would never have produced “Deine Blauen Augen” / ”Tvoje Plave Oči” if I had slept till dawn. Well, life is full of surprises sometimes. 🙂

The Making Of “I’m Gonna Fly Away“

At the beginning of July I thought that my forthcoming record The Muse was finished after writing “Deine Blauen Augen“ / “Tvoje Plave Oči“. However, I had itchy feet to travel again even though my holidays in Croatia were over. After almost ten years of living in Berlin I’ve had a feeling not to be at home here any more. Suddenly I was humming the chorus melody …

I guess I might have been inspired while skating at Tempelhofer Feld, the former airport of Berlin. When the weather is fine, I often go there and pretend to be an airplane to take off. You can see it in the music video of “I’m Gonna Fly Away“. This summer I’ve also spent a lot of time at the lakes of the city. For a while I withdrew from the art scene, watching magnificent sunsets instead. In fact, nature is the only true artist! After my holidays I was simply craving for peace and quiet to reflect on certain things in my life. In such moments I wrote these lyrics:

I’m Gonna Fly Away

I fell off the swing in the city of dreams
I crashed into the dirt of the streets
How I tried to be an artist
searching for love!
For art they would not pay
and love was just for sale

I’m gonna fly away from here,
away from the capital of superficiality
I’ll stay away, away from you, dear
’cause you are not my friend
and I won’t come again

I was digging the scene in the city of dreams
I was digging for a cake in the cream
From station to station
I’ve been running for the train
My inner child is calling
to escape from the rain

I’m gonna fly away from here …

My song will fly from the southern sky
where the crystal sea is clear
And I’m gonna sing in foreign words
The sun will shine on me

I’m gonna fly away from here …

While making the video, two friends of mine assisted me at the camera. What would I have done without Albert Ewert and Ralph-Joachim Edler von Görbitz! I could not have filmed myself on the swing or during the skating episodes at Tempelhofer Feld! So I’m really grateful to them for their help. In my opinion they did a great job!

One Saturday morning in late July I went to the visitor platform at Tegel airport. Surrounded by families with little children, I recorded film material of planes during take-off. Holding my camcorder, I felt a slight pain in my heart. How I wished to be on board of one of those planes! Instead, I travelled just a few kilometres to shoot a beautiful sequence at the shore of lake Wannsee.

Now the video of “I’m Gonna Fly Away“ has been online for two weeks. Since its release on YouTube I’ve observed special popularity in Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia. After the recording at Planet Earth Studios sound engineer Alex said, “This sounds like a song from the Balkans!“ Well, some coincidences just happen without a reason …

On the EP The Muse “I’m Gonna Fly Away“ was chosen to be track 5, the link between “Deine Blauen Augen“ and the Croatian version “Tvoje Plave Oči“. One thing is for sure: I have to fly away in order to produce my next video!