VOLTA x Beursschouwburg : Calvin & Nemo + extra surprises!

19:00 : Doors
20.00 • Wendy
21.00 • Calvin & Nemo

Calvin and Nemo
is a musical duo from Brussels. They play loud, simple, multi-instrumental melodies, while their lyrics are delivered with great care. In the time they spend together, they explore music and performance through their friendship that is as nimble as it is profound. Tonight they present their debut album, which they finalised during a residency at our neighbours Volta.

About the album :
At Your Sweet Pleasure’ is the debut album of the Brussels duo Calvin and Nemo, release on the 8th of November 2023. After years of exploring music-making together with their voices, guitars and what’s around them, this first album is a soft and direct collection of what has been found on the instinctive approach Calvin and Nemo have developed to writing songs. Writing starts with a book, a sentence, a coffee or a tea, a little assemblage of chords which then unfold organically in a call and response they’ve articulated in their constant dialogue with each other. This clear dialogue between these two protagonists (Calvin and Nemo) then welcomes the public to enter the conversation within the multi-meaning lyrics and music they’re building together.

‘At Your Sweet Pleasure’ is thought of as a day, a journey from one city to another or even like a bridge between years and ideas. You can find titles such as “All by Myself” written in the half-empty street of Brussels with nothing more than their acoustic guitars, or “The Tunnel”, a song build with two distinctive parts, inspired by a train trip from Brussels to London, under the sea, imagining the eurotunnel as a transparent see through road where you see the fish, or even “Baby Love” the single of the album, a cheeky melody line asking if imagination is gonna be enough?

Each of the sculpted little worlds that Calvin and Nemo have reunited in this album have been recorded all at once by Milan Van Doren in Volta in January 2023. The idea was to create a set up which would capture their composition as close as possible from how they sound in reality, as if they’re played for you in your living room. 

Wendy
is wavy, Wendy is weird, Wendy is wicked and doesn’t have a beard. Wendy is the alter ego of pianist Maya Dhondt. In her work she explores the boundaries within genres, looking for encounters between the classical and the popular, acoustics and electronics, the technical and the intuitive.