Home-made musical potpourri
A German-Colombian musical duo experiments in
eclecticism
12 songs, 10 genres, thought-provoking lyrics and just 2
musicians! That’s WƎNDƎZEIT’s debut album. This duo proves
that totally different musical styles and topics can co-exist in
harmony. From rock to Afro-Caribbean sounds, their first CD
features a wide range of rhythms, styles and subjects. Some of
the songs have serious and critical lyrics, some are ironic and
subtle. The production location also sets the duo apart: They
composed, wrote, recorded, arranged and mixed almost all of
this musical potpourri at home.
WƎNDƎZEIT are Alejandro Donado and Anja Titze. Their
backgrounds couldn’t be more different: He was born and bred in
the Colombian metropolis of Bogotá; she grew up in the spa town
of Oberbärenburg in Saxony’s Ore Mountains – population: 150.
They met in the late 1990s at the university in Toulouse, the ville
rose in the South of France. After Toulouse, they sampled the
atmosphere elsewhere, including the German cities of Dresden,
Würzburg and Reims, France. But it all started in Dresden,
where they lived from 2000 on. There, each of them pursued
their own artistic hobbies, until the cold day in January 2002
when everything started to change.
“I was playing the guitar again, and had come up with a nice
tune. Then I asked Anja if she wanted to sing along and had any
lyrics that would suit the music,” explains Alejandro. She didn’t
need to be asked twice. She grabbed the folder with her poems
and ballads and started looking for suitable lyrics.
After all, she had discovered the world of poetry at the age of 15,
writing in her spare time. Singing has been a hobby of hers just
as long. “I especially loved singing Edith Piaf’s French chansons,
and musical numbers from ‘My Fair Lady’.” Music was an
important part of Alejandro’s life, too. He learned classical guitar
for years, played in a rock band as a teenager and even went to
music college for three years. With their similar interests, it was
only a matter of time before the two became a musical team.
Anyway,it didn’t take them long to find lyrics for the first melody.
And so it began – the music, lyrics and vocals came together.
That was the first step - WƎNDƎZEIT was born!
Their earliest songs were just words, a melody and guitar
accompaniment, and the occasional guitar solo. Nothing else.
They gradually collected the equipment they needed to record
and arrange the songs and make the musical structures more
complex. However, their musical interests were so diverse that
they didn’t want to limit themselves to any single style. Instead,
they started composing songs just as different as their
backgrounds. With time, the range of topics grew more and more
eclectic. The two musicians’ main aim is to raise awareness of
man-made problems that can still be reversed. Alejandro adds:
“We want our songs to be thought—provoking. And we hope that
they will help people see the ways of the world a little bit
differently. That’s what WƎNDƎZEIT is all about!”