Raf and O Celebrate The Birth Of Their New Album ’We Are Stars’ With A Launch At St Mark’s Regents Park + Gold And Silver Lines: Trails From Constellation Club + Eyeliner Live Video
September 30, 2023 § Leave a comment
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Raf and O ⓒ 2023
Dear all …
we’re inviting you to a special London show.
After many months of writing and producing, we’re bringing to you the new album, our fifth!
Raf and O Launch
‘We Are Stars’
St Marks Regents Park, Saturday 21 October, 3PM
TICKETS
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We Are Stars Album Launch Poster – Design Klarita Kaparte and Raf and O
Multi-faceted and cinematic in inspiration, reflecting our contemporary society flourishing and struggling simultaneously.
Inspired by movies, life and stars, tinged in retro futuristic 50s blues, edgy and anxiety ridden, upbeat, thoughtful and metaphoric,
can be summarised as existential arty poetic visual pop for the 21st century.
From the leading single ‘Still Sitting In Our Time Machines’, a funky retro-futuristic track concerned with our human journey, dealing with themes of science fiction crossing over into modern reality to ‘There’s Nothing I Want More’, edgy angular catchy and existential, to the poignant ‘Waterloo’ – “Wherever we are that’s our place” and the spiralling ‘Cheap Champagne‘. From ‘Tommy Newton’, a love song Raf has written from the perspective of Mary-Lou inspired by The Man Who Fell To Earth (the 1976 science fiction film starring David Bowie and Candy Clark) to ‘Eyeliner’, a story of a young star always ready for the show – “A casualty of pleasure”, but he’s also a catalyst for change, “a dandy of the new world”. From ’Andy Under Stars’ depicting a homeless character heavily obsessed with Andy Warhol to ‘Tear The Page’ inspired by Kill Your Darlings a film on the early days of the beat writers and ‘Altered Reality’, indirectly inspired by The Matrix.
‘Tommy Newton’ earned accolades when it came out in 2021 as footage from Raf and O’s first live performance and was described as intoxicating, reflective, artistic and dramatic by God Is In The TV Zine and spellbinding by Monolith Cocktail
Unravel this and more …
THE WHOLE ALBUM WILL BE PERFORMED LIVE,
A UNIQUE CHANCE, A MATTINEE SHOW, 3PM,
IN THE IDYLLIC SETTING OF ST MARK’S, REGENTS PARK,
PROMOTED ONCE AGAIN BY
DEAR FRIEND KLARITA OF KAPARTE,
CATCH THE LAST GLIMPSES OF BRITISH SUMMER TIME,
WITH A FREE GLASS OF WINE,
LIGHT FROM THE BIGGEST STAR
SEEPING THROUGH THE WINDOW,
WHILST EXPERIENCING ‘WE ARE STARS’ LIVE!
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!!
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Raf and O perform at Schtumm Box Wiltshire May 2023. Photo by Louie
Trails From Constellation Club
Constellation Club, Raf and O’s new club with bespoke and exclusive items of merch, Raf’s original art and secret songs of the future, was launched last June on Bandcamp as two items of merch – Shine with Raf and O and Dazzle with Raf and O. Our fans who have joined the club so far, have fed back that they are cherishing the handwritten black books of ‘We Are Stars’, that they were unexpected in size and a wonderful thing to have. The books have been conceptualised and adorned in golden and silver ink and they are truly a one off, no book is the same as the next. Visual art is in the mix in the form of portraits and secret songs of the future have been and are flowing into the club, a mix of super early days renditions, behind the scenes updates, new lyrics, names on releases and more. We’re very grateful to the ‘Constellationists’ for supporting this direct to fans approach and we are welcoming new members. A huge thank you to Marcus Portee, Adrian Burns, Adrian Ainsworth and David Plaice.
CONSTELLATION CLUB – SHINE WITH RAF AND O
CONSTELLATION CLUB – DAZZLE WITH RAF AND O
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Above excerpts from ‘Cheap Champagne’ ⓒ Raf and O 2023
So we’re thrilled …
Summer 2023 saw us conceptualising and designing ‘We Are Stars’ album artwork, setting up a photoshoot and making … a new official video that is silently screaming its way towards you, featuring a huge star of the silver screen, we kid you not! Meanwhile, we leave you with a live video performance of ‘Eyeliner’ filmed last May in Box, Wiltshire, many thanks to Schtumm for having us!
God Is In The TV Zine says of Eyeliner: “A mysterious tale of an outsider …It swells into a soaring 50s-tinged chorus that swirls with the atmosphere of a back road Blues club”
See you at the launch!
October 21, 3PM
RAF AND O ALBUM LAUNCH SHOW
Love
Raf and O 🌟✨
Raf and O – ‘Eyeliner’ Live at Schtumm Box Wiltshire 21 May 2023
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‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ inspires Raf and O’s ’Tommy Newton’. The Tour Online is dead, long live The Tour! Constellation Club, Inter-Pla-Net-Live, Shared Air Shows and Art Is Calling
September 18, 2021 § Leave a comment
‘Cause if you think of what it’s all about, you probably find it’s about creating.
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Side One Of This Very Blog
GOODBYE TOUR ONLINE
Mission accomplished. 24 dates and one year later, Raf and O (aka Raf Mantelli and O Richard Smith) with our fans emerge from The Tour Online celebrating. Dependable, journeying together, ‘cause if you think of what it’s all about, you probably find it’s about creating.
Courageous and strong, varied and long, each show different from the next, The Metro’s newspaper featured Raf and O’s livestream shows among the best online. Punching through to the other side of the screen, interacting with the visuals we created for the shows, there were performances, tensions, drama, release, there were smiles, sounds, lots of sounds, live, smooth, edgy, dynamic. There were a lot of interactions with our fans. Intertwining interpretations of David Bowie songs (TMWSTW live video features on our previous blog) colliding with renditions, at time total revisions of the songs of Kate Bush, riding the collision through to the other side to meet Raf and O songs with a lot of the already released tracks freshly approached for the tour and a lot of the new, unheard and previewed for the eyes and the ears of the eager out there. O and I want to really say: A deep felt THANK YOU, you are the best fans and we are going to bring you more. You can find The Tour Online action shots album here
RAF AND O ‘TOMMY NEWTON’
INSPIRED BY ‘THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH
“Intoxicating, reflective, artistic and dramatic”
God Is In The TV zine
“A spellbinding lamentable love song … sublime”
Monolith Cocktail
Amongst the new Raf and O songs, one in particular is close to our hearts: ‘Tommy Newton’, which will be part of our new album is inspired by ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’, the 1976 science fiction film based on the novel by Walter Davis directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring David Bowie in the role of Thomas Jerome Newton and Candy Clark in the one of Mary-Lou. It’s a love song I’ve written from the perspective of Mary-Lou, she’s talking to Tommy, but it’s really happening in her mind, she’s talking to herself and she’s talking to us. I loved the film all my life, just as I’ve loved Bowie. Performed for the first time ever on The Tour Online, the live video of this performance has been featured by the press and now is part of this blog too!
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Raf and O – ‘Tommy Newton’ Live on The Tour Online 12 June 2021
Side Two Of This Very Blog
Last month I published my stream of consciousness on social media.
“Some time we take our time to figure out where we may want to head out next. There is no clear path set, only the leading light of our imagination to determine our next steps. So, with that in mind, we’re at the end of the tour online and we may yet have to define what has to come up next, under the leading light of stars, some place afar.”
Raf Mantelli (2021)
So we’ve let our imagination flow and time has clearly grown, or has it compressed?
….. On the event horizon
2022
We’re launching two projects
INTER-PLA-NET-LIVE and CONSTELLATION CLUB
INTER-PLA-NET-LIVE
PHASE 1
5 shows
one every 5 weeks
like the points of a star
Starting January 2022
Building on the strength and success of The Tour Online, INTER-PLA-NET-LIVE will see Raf and O presenting new live shows in the ether, accessible from all parts of the world and who knows, the universe perhaps?
Reaching new territories – it’s in the DNA.
plus …..
CONSTELLATION CLUB
Are you a star in our galaxy?
A new club to see the birth of our NEW ALBUM.
Very excited. Details to be announced
plus …..
The return of SHARED AIR SHOWS
We have a new name for those shows in the flesh, you know, the ones where we share the same physical space as the audience. ‘Shared Air Shows’, that’s how we will refer to them from now on. Alongside INTER-PLA-NET-LIVE (our future live online shows) we are testing the atmosphere soon to be leaving the capsule. Yes we will back wherever possible, performing in the flesh too, so look out for Shared Air Shows by Raf and O from soon into the future …
THEATRES, PROMOTERS, FESTIVALS, RAF AND O HAVE THREE EVER EXPANDING LIVE SHOWS TO BRING TO YOU!
THE SONGS OF RAF AND O
(Tommy Newton Live Video)
THE KICK INSIDE – THE SONGS OF KATE BUSH
(Babooshka Live Video)
CHILDREN OF THE BEWLAY BROTHERS
(TO DAVID BOWIE WITH LOVE)
(The Man Who Sold The World Live Video)
For bookings and more info email: info@rafando.com
plus …..
ART IS CALLING
The rekindling of another passion of mine – ART.
After years of making music and writing songs I’m making art again, I see them working like a seesaw. Maintaining a visual connection through album artwork creation, video visions, visuals and performance, this is only a step away, or the gestures of a hand. Below a couple of portraits, you may recognise the subjects.
Watch out for work and it will take different forms, from now into the future …
Commissions are of course welcome – info@rafando.com
plus …..
There is more, but you know… it can wait for now!
2022 will see us busy …. Raf and O ❤
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