Hiddensee

"We saved the title track for the end of the record this time – just as the final years of the 1990s put an end to our extensive travels. Equipped with a vast collection of impressions, we return(ed) to the very place that, already during GDR-times, inspired us to write wonderful school assignments on the subject of: “My favourite holiday experience”. The word “Hiddensee” bears a multitude of different meanings for us. We remember a unique island in the northeast of Germany – both resort and retreat of the former GDR where celebrities vacationed next to high-level politicians in tiny houses with thatched roofs and day trippers met those planning their escape – natural beauty and historical contradictions on not more than 19 square meters. Just as in “Zanzibar,” the last track of WÆNDE, we use a delayed triple echo as well as an accessible but tranquil and harmonic cadence shifting between cello and piano. All lovers of puns will notice the treasure that can be found here – HIDDEN-SEE combines the contrasting English words “hidden” and “see”. With the last track of this record also comes the end of our journey. Of course, getting back to our everyday lives always left us a little sad. Yet we were looking forward to our return back home as it also meant we would be seeing our instruments again soon – and with it, our favourite pastime outside school: HAUSMUSIK! (Not House but Family music for the home!)" - Ceeys

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Ceeys

CEEYS are the Berlin-born, Potsdam-based brothers Sebastian and Daniel Selke, an award-winning cello-piano duo performing an impressive experimental but accessible minimalism between avant-garde and pop that incorporates elements of jazz, ambient and classical chamber music.

"Hybrid" is a word that has always been vital to CEEYS' vocabulary, but its application is not limited to the manner in which cellist Sebastian Selke and his brother, pianist Daniel Selke, combine their two instruments so harmoniously. Instead, like the duo's very name – which merges the words "VIOLONCELLE" (fr.: cello) and "KEYS" – it is reflective of their overall aesthetic, one in which they integrate the many ingredients that have helped shape them as both musicians and people.

"Brought up in the last decade of the former GDR, we use our releases to come to terms with our memories, impressions and feelings about these rather hybrid times." – CEEYS

The idea of crossing musical barriers is not at all new to the Selkes and resonates in a particularly powerful fashion: the two brothers, now based in Potsdam, grew up in East Berlin during the final decade of the Communist-era German Democratic Republic. CEEYS' award-winning work is provoked by their urge to explore recollections of their youth, both before and after the fall of the regime, and to apply those lessons and influences to contemporary music.
Encouraged to play from the age of five by their parents, actress Gabriele Selke and radio presenter Harald Selke, the brothers went on to study music formally. Sebastian and Daniel have been featured on numerous album releases and soundtracks. Sebastian has also collaborated with Ólafur Arnalds and Spitfire Audio. They've also reworked the likes of Peter Broderick, Carlos Cipa and Lambert, and released two albums of their own, 2016’s The Grunewald Church Session and 2017’s Concrete Fields, released by 1631 Recordings, distributed digitally worldwide by Decca Publishing and Deutsche Grammophon.

Photo: Claudia Araujo