NOVEMBER 2010

Barnaby Tree is back in Berlin and we are continuing to work on his new album.  The album will be out early next year.  Very different music. Barnaby is a unique musician. I real pleasure and fun production.

Two Dollar Bash are also back in the studio.  Joe Armstrong and Matt DeHarp anyway. Mark is in Haiti. Doing the last recordings and overdubs for their new album. I also played a bit of tired piano on one song, at Joe’s request.

OCTOBER 2010

Ayesha Mendham, our fabulous diva is back in town, recording vocals and writing songs with me for the United Colors album. I have found myself a great music collaborator here. I look forward to launching the music onto the world when it is all finished. This will be the 1st half of 2011.

A new CD of instrumental music is also underway. Cool slow chillout, lounge or similar. This follows on from the 2 CD’s released last year.

SEPTEMBER 2010

Holiday time.  Paris, Spain and Portugal. Going to a warm place for a little while.  I will do my best not to keep in touch via Facebook the whole time.

AUGUST 2010

Two Dollar Bash: working with one of Berlin’s music best known bands. Mark Mulholland, Joe Armstrong and Matt DeHarp. The guys are recording there new album in my studio. I am engineering the album. Dugald  Jayes, the band’s long time producer & engineer is also working on the album.

JULY 2010

In the studio with Luke Moller. Apart from being another Australian in Berlin, Luke also plays a pretty mean violin and mandolin. He is in Berlin for a couple of months to record for the United Colorsw of Music album. Luke and I are also writing instrumental music for soundtracks.

MAY 2010

Producing a new album for cello player and singer/songwriter Barnaby Tree.  A great musician and a just enough crazy person to spend lots of time in the studio. Barnaby will also be playing a couple of piano tracks for his new album, but it will be mainly cello songs.

United Colors of Music: Ayesha Mendam is back in Berlin for the end of May. We are busy writing and recording new songs for the bands debut album.

APRIL 2010

So everything is dried out, if not really warm enough yet to open the windows. Apparently the coldest winter in Berlin in more than 30 years. Just really needed to know that didnt we all! Currently waiting for the insurance company to do something.Apart from not doing anything that is.

JANUARY 2010

Hello out there to everyone from a very cold Berlin. To celebrate the days and nights of -20C, a water pipe in my building burst and flooded the studio. A very cold ouch. I sure am not the worst  affected in the building, but it is a monumental pain all the same becasue everything is wet.  I’ll be back when I dry out.

NOVEMBER  2009

Lots of studio work continuing over the last months.

Lenjes Robinson  - Percussion 1.   Recording his new album continues. We spent time playing with gongs for a couple of days. They are as loud as they look.

United Colors of Music   -   a new band project I have put together. Musicians from different countries, different influences.  A diverse sound.  We had our 1st recording sessions at the end of November. The band is currently writing material for the 1st CD release.

The band features:  Ayesha Mendham on  vocals;  Ina Brox on saxaphones, clarinet;  Ben Perkoff on saxaphones, flute;  Luke Moller on violin, mandolin; Krili Hof on bass;  Lenjes Robinson on percussion and (of course)  Chris Lastelle on keyboards, guitars and a bit of singing.

AUGUST  2009

Playing the Ahaus Summer Festival on Fr. 7 and Sa. 8th. In rock mode!!  I am playing with my 4 piece band. The band lineup: Chris Lastelle on vocals, guitar, keyboards;  Lenjes Robinson on drums; Krili Hof on bass; Jurgen Bailey on guitar, Nick Reddel on violin.

I have also started production of a new album with Lenjes Robinson. The album is solo percussion. Lenjes plays all the instruments: there are between 6 and 16 different percussion instruments per track.

 I am producing and engineering the album as well as arranging the music with Lenjes. It is one of the most extraordinary projects I have worked on.  It is a big project and I don’t expect it to be released until 2011, but the work and wait will be worth it.

JUNE 2009

I Love Orient.  A lounge chillout CD inspired  Arabic and Oriental music. Released through Universal Music . CD and download.

I have been busy in the studio, writing, playing and  producing 15 songs for the CD.  Having traveled to Morocco earlier in the year was the inspiration for a lot of the music.  The „I love Orient“ CD is a followup release to  the  „I Love Asia“ CD (released Feb 2010).

You can check out the tracks via the  link to listen and download.

http://www.musicline.de/de/product/4032989108312/1813958

APRIL 2009

I am currently writing more songs for the next album inspired by a recent 4 week trip to Morocco. Check out the photos page for pics from this amazing musical experience!

As promised, "I Love Asia" Vol. 1 was released in January 2009 through More Music. This instrumental chill-out CD is gaining popularity and is available in all good music shops and through iTunes. Samples can be found on my music page.

I've also been producing and engineering a percussion CD with Lenjes Robinson (Berlin based drummer / percussionist) which should be available this year. This project is intended to be an instructional / sample CD of a range of percussion rhythms, but is just as enjoyable as a CD in its own right!

SOUNDTRACKS / PROJECTS 2008

Amongst all this I’ve also been involved in composing and producing a number of tracks for the first in a series of World Music CDs entitled “I Love Asia” to be released in January 2009 through More Music. This was produced in association with Come Clean Music in Berlin.

I have also composed and produced a World Music Sampler CD with Come Clean Music featuring Berlin based musicians from Brazil on guitar, accordion, sax, and percussion.  Come Clean and I have also been collaborating on an Electro Lounge music project.

NOVEMBER 2008

This autumn I’ve added several new songs to the performance and building a number of acoustic tracks into the program and am getting a great response. These will be on my next album due out in 2009.

SEPTEMBER 2008

August and September has been filled with gigs supporting the release of the ‘this is what I do” CD. The main show was my official CD launch at the Oxident bar. For the night, I invited a line up of extra musicians to join my normal band for the night – Nick Reddel and Daniella Grimm on violins, Barnaby Tree on cello and Ben Perkov on saxophone. The photos of the event are up on the photos page.

JULY 2008

The big news was the release of my CD “this is what i do” with Berlin label Megaphon in July for distribution throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The CD is available in the larger chains such as Saturn and Media Markt and most of the smaller independent outlets.

I’ve been busy following up the release of this European distribution with a number of gigs in and around Berlin, including a few of the larger festivals (see my gigs page for details.)

Check out the new “FAB TV – Behind the Scenes” video clip from the June broadcast, plus the video of the actual TV show. The band members and I had a hilarious and FAB time with the whole experience. Especially funny was the interview in Deutsche!

MAY 2008

Hi everyone,

It’s springtime in Berlin. Just starting my second year here and still loving it. The city is coming to life: two long weekends in a row with the May 1st celebrations & Kulture Karnivale. Three days of street festivals and parties each time. It is as much fun as it sounds.

But now we bring you the news ….

After a lot of “behind the scenes” work, I am very happy to announce that I have signed a deal with the German music distributor Megaphon for the release of the “this is what I do” album in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The album is to be released on June 9th. There is a radio and press campaign starting right now to promote the album.

I also have my first European TV appearance with FAB TV Berlin to be broadcast here in Germany and Austria in early June. The band will perform one song, followed by a five minute interview. I will post the performance on my site shortly after. It should be fun – especially the interview in German!

VIDEOS! I have 2 new videos to check out. First up is “don’t fit no more” - playing at the Neukölln Street Festival last year. The clip for “facing the other way” is from my 1st show of 2008 at a bar called Anno 64, in Kreuzberg, Berlin. This show featured the debut of my new lead guitarist Matt Buckley, originally from London. He plays a great solo at the end of the song.

The videos are also on Youtube.com. If you are a Youtube user, please rate the videos and leave a comment - it all helps!

Also on my website, you can listen to my first German Radio Interview with Kreuzberg Radio. I did the interview in English and it was later dubbed over in German. The site contains both versions for the curious.

Hope you and yours are all fine and dandy. Big hugs all round.

Chris