We have released new music – songs you already know, now in new midsummer-inspired forms. If you would like to support our music, you can download the release from our Bandcamp page for a symbolic price (or support us with a larger contribution if you wish). Also available on streaming platforms. 
JĀŅUGUNIS ~ TĀLBRAUCĒJA ŠOFERA SAPNIS – now in the combined version we have been playing in concerts for years. Still featuring excerpts from our concert at the Arsenāls Exhibition Hall of the Latvian National Museum of Art and from Lylio Lelijo, performed by the Lithuanian folklore ensemble Bitula (Kaunas). GULBJI with vocals recorded on a midsummer night at Angelhouse in the coastal village of Mazirbe. GULBJI remixed by our longtime Estonian friends Forgotten Sunrise: All brought together with the help of Kaspars Tobis at 7Synths studio (Mālpils).
JĀŅUGUNIS ~ TĀLBRAUCĒJA ŠOFERA SAPNIS
(Midsummer Fires ~ Fernfahrertraum)
We have been playing this combined version live for years and wanted to create a studio version of it as well. It still includes excerpts from our 2012 concert at the Arsenāls Exhibition Hall of the Latvian National Museum of Art and from “Lylio Lelijo” performed by the Lithuanian folklore ensemble Bitula (Kaunas).
This April, our 2003 video for “Tālbraucēja Šofera Sapnis” was screened once again at the Riga International Short Film Festival 2ANNAS ISFF. Screening was part of the festival’s 30th anniversary programme Naive Cinema: True Cinema – a selection of 21st-century Latvian amateur films and video works united by a light touch, naïve yet bold approaches, and above all, the joy of filmmaking.
Programme curator Rudolfs Deinats highlighted our film:
“Although this is formally a music video, I believe it captures the very essence of the Naive Cinema programme. It presents an extremely simple, slightly absurd premise, yet remains intriguing and, I would say, existentially moving. Across the programme, several works reflect and mirror so-called serious cinema.
What is most fascinating — and at the same time somewhat bittersweet — is the fact that French cult director Quentin Dupieux, with his film Rubber, broke into the world of independent cinema using almost the same core concept as Tālbraucēja šofera sapnis. This happened three years after the premiere of the STandART video. So who copied whom?”
We tried to remember all the festivals where our videos have participated. Quite a long list! Only now, 20 years later, we accidentally discovered that our video had also been screened in Barcelona back in 2006.
Full list – STandART video festival appearances
GULBJI (Swans) – new midsummer versions
The Baltic Sea coast between the villages of Mazirbe and Kolka (the Livonian Coast) has always felt mysterious to us. Within the territory of Slītere National Park, you feel closer to nature and to yourself and, if you are not too loud, many birds and animals may come to greet you.
The moment you arrive, you can already feel the pine forests – the air smells different, and your lungs seem to open a little wider. Fishing boats and nets, traditions of the Livonian people, old stories about the narrow-gauge railway, pirates and werewolves – it is all here. Latvian lighthouses stand nearby, while at night the Sõrve Lighthouse on the Estonian island of Saaremaa glimmers on the horizon. Soviet-era military structures can also still be found along the coast.
We came across the Angelhouse in Mazirbe in early 2006, when our planned 20 km winter night hike went wrong – the weather forecast had not been checked correctly, and some of us were not dressed warmly enough. Already at the start of the night, we were looking for shelter among the dunes from the freezing wind.
We entered an abandoned building to decide what to do next. When we switched on our flashlights, large mysterious angel faces looked down at us from wall niches like religious icons – wide-eyed, with anchors instead of hearts. “To be in a place where angels sing” was written elsewhere on the wall. We stayed with the angels until morning. They saved us. Only much later did we learn where they had come from – a Christian summer camp for children had once been held nearby.
On our hikes since then, we always visited the Angelhouse. Although the angels and the inscriptions on the walls have now disappeared, the atmosphere and the stories live on. It felt like the right place to capture a recording. Vocals were recorded there on a Midsummer Night, with the sea right beside. Some nature sounds were added from other walks along the coast. The release also includes several analogue photographs taken in the summer of 2006, when the angels were still there.
GULBJI (Forgotten Sunrise Remix)
All recordings brought together with the help of Kaspars Tobis at 7Synths studio near Mālpils, Latvia. Our studio collaboration with Kaspars is also approaching 20 years.
Have a magical summer!
STandART
Gatis ~ Jānis ~ Kalvis
(+ through the music, greetings from band members featured on all recordings)
