Artillio Bergholtz, chairman and founder of the Swedish association The Beatles Information Center, founded in 1973. He has always been interested in music of various kinds, although his favorite group has always been, and still is, The Beatles. He works with daily information about the group's music in the association's magazine Beatles Nytt (Beatles News) as well as on the association's website www.beatlesnytt.se, and he also follows the deeds and doings of the solo Beatles in the field of music.
Armand Gutheim ft. The Feel Harmonic Rockestra -
The Human Footprint
The album The Human Footprint contains no less than 21 tracks with a total run time of 1 hour and 14 minutes. Of these, six tracks are vocal while the others are instrumental, sometimes with elements of voices without any actual text.
The Human Footprint, humanity's footprint on Earth, is in its entirety an album that wants to make us aware of what we, as humans, do to our planet - both now and what it can lead to for future generations, which is clearly reflected in both lyrics and music.
Armand Gutheim has tied together the album by calling the opening track Sunrise and the closing track Sunset.
In between, the music and the titles oscillate between hope and despair regarding what has happened, and still is, with our planet and its climate. Straight forward titles such as Poisoned Waters, Toxic Nightmare, Reduced Nature, Complete Trash, Insidious Sunburn, Commercial Vacuum, Dangerous Power Plant, Hidden Chemicals, Military Waste, Child Victims and Temperature Increase clearly show Armand's views on the acute situation for our existence on Earth, and which of course he also wants the listener to take note of and take a stand on.
The introductory track is giving us hope for the future of the Earth, and based on the ninth cloud (Being On Cloud 9) we are able to feel happy, as we at the same time look down on our planet and realize its vulnerability, which is what the song's content wants to point out.
Fortunately, this is not a doomsday record, and the album ends with three tracks of positive hope, despite all the warning bells ringing about the state of the Earth. Alternative Futures, an instrumental track that wants to convey the opportunities we still have to control our behavior when it comes to managing our only planet, Breathe Out Tonight with lyrics about all the beauty that actually exist in life, and Sunset which is an instrumental track with a calm piano which is built on with strings, bass, gentle percussion and brilliant saxophone.
It's obvious that The Human Footprint contains a lot of music with many different sounds and tempos, when one notes what the multi-instrumentalist Armand himself actually can treat, but also the interesting instrumental contributions from others; Armand Gutheim is responsible for the album's theme, music, lyrics, recording, mixing, and production in its entirety. He is also responsible for the lead vocals, various backing vocals, voices of various kinds, various keyboards, acoustic and electric guitar, fretless bass, percussion, drums and various sound effects. But not to forget, he has had the help of several very talented musicians and singers such as Hans Müller on acoustic and electric double bass, solo guitar, cello, Jew's-harp and percussion, Yvan Auzely with the full range of different saxophones, Santiago Jimenez Borges on violin and Charlotte Assarsson on vocals, backing vocals and percussion.
In addition to this musical work, there are five newly produced and interesting videos to watch on YouTube: What A Marvelous World, Breathe Out Tonight, Mother Earth, What About The Human Footprint? and Being On Cloud 9. Here I get the impression that Armand and his wife Charlotte can very much be compared to the world-famous couple John and Yoko Lennon. Both in terms of their message of peace and the caution with the climate, but also with their clear presence in the various videos. Armand has clearly developed his skill in the art of producing videos that reflect both the music and the lyrics making it easy for the viewer to absorb the current message.
In summary, this is a great and well-worked creation filled with music, lyrics and video productions. The run time of about 75 minutes also means that Armand has been able to use the music in a multifaceted way with variations in tempo, volume and not least in terms of different sounds. Not to be forgotten is the many different styles of music who are mixed here; jazz, oriental music, hard rock, film music, blues, classical music, experimental music, pop, Indian music and industrial music just to name a few genres that is included in this musical work.
Favorite pieces: Sunrise, What About The Human Footprint?, Mother Earth, Dangerous Power Plant, Breathe Out Tonight and Sunset.
Most welcome to visit The Beatles Information Center's website!
Listen to The Human Footprint on Spotify or iTunes!
