Boris Molotsky and Roni Valensi are living the dream in Berlin. The art rock duo have been making music together for six years as Angellate while hanging on to their day jobs. Now they’ve decided to take the plunge and make a go of it, leaving jobs, family and friends to work full time on their music.
I met Roni and Boris when I was in Berlin for the Jewish Film Festival. They had been in Berlin for a little over two months at that point, and we talked about music, Berlin and Israel at the Filmbühne restaurant in Charlottenberg.
“We’re not a couple,” Roni told me, “our relationship is more like sister and brother, we’re best friends. We met through work ten years ago, I left that job after a year, but when I started to get more into music I remembered Boris from that time. I called him, we met up – and we’ve been making music together ever since.”
“Awww…,” Boris smiled, and added, “we are very different from one another, polar opposites.”
“I like jazz, blues, soft rock,” Roni said.
“I’m more hardcore, punk, grunge, alternative, even hip hop,” said Boris, “we don’t have a formula …the music needs to feel right.”
“A lot comes from our subconscious,” said Roni, “and our subconscious is full of rock and pop.”
“Don’t go there,” Boris laughed, “you shouldn’t know what’s lurking in my subconscious… it’s a very dark pit.”
The dynamic relationship between the two, intensely involved, yet with an ironic distance, completing one another’s sentences yet taking it all in a completely different direction, creates an appealing energy and dramatic tension that can be felt in their music. Roles are not strictly defined between the two, although Boris tends to work more with the music, while Roni writes many of the lyrics. Asked to describe their composing process, Boris explained, “I might write a part for the piano, but without a singing part to it, and then Roni might come and sing something on it that I could never have imagined.”
What brought Angellate to Berlin?
“We were writing songs in English from the beginning,” said Roni, “and we knew that we wanted to go international, but there was no timeline.”
“And it took time,” said Boris.
Deliberating between London and Berlin, the choice was made to come to Berlin because the scene is more alternative, it’s cheaper, it’s a bit closer geographically to Israel, and the music scene is very active.
“We perform about once a week here,” Roni told me, “in Tel Aviv there’s no way we could perform that often, and if people don’t know who you are, then the only people who will come to hear you are your friends. Here, there are lots of places to perform and people come to hear music, even if they have never heard of your band, they take an interest, and they come up to talk to us after the show.”
Getting there and getting organized was not too hard, according to the duo. There are several Israeli facebook groups for sharing information on Berlin. The largest group has about 4,800 members, although it’s not exactly “love thy fellow Israeli as thyself” in the Berlin/Israel bubble.
“It’s a tough group,” said Roni, “there’s a lot of cynicism, ridicule and hostility towards anyone different.”
Different translates roughly as “not in the in-group,” and as a result of some of the more heated discussions in this forum, they told me that someone recently opened a new group, announcing: Let it be clear that in this group we are nice to one another. They have found plenty of people who are glad to help out, with word of mouth being the best way to secure gigs.
Their first performance was at a bar in Wedding (the Berlin neighborhood is Holon’s sister-city connection!). They participated in a competition sponsored by a recording studio. Although they didn’t win, they were asked to come back to perform.
On another occasion, they saw an announcement for an open mic night at a bar, but when they arrived they saw that although it was open mic, it was a stand-up comedy night and not a band night. One woman took the stage and began her set saying, “Hi I’m from Lebanon.”
“Then she came up to me with the mic,” Roni recalled, “and asked: Where are you from? I answered: Israel. She said: Great, there are some people here from my neighborhood! Then another guy raised his hand and said: I’m from Syria.”
“He came up to us later,” said Boris, ” and we talked… he was a musician too, we talked about playing together sometime and… we had a moment there.”
Their first months in Berlin have already inspired a myriad of feelings, sometimes contradictory, as expressed in this video made when they first arrived:
“It’s complicated,” smiled Boris.
“We’re not crazy about Berlin,” continued Roni, “something about everyday life here is very anemic. In our current neighborhood (Schoenberg), when you go down to the street, Monday thru Saturday is like Shabbat in Tel Aviv, and Sunday here is Yom Kippur. You won’t see a single person on the street.”
Making the most of this experience, they have decided not to seek out a long term apartment rental, and the two have already moved once since arriving in Berlin. In this way, they hope to become acquainted with as many different parts of the city as possible before the year is through. The most important criteria in looking for an apartment? Boris said, “The first question we ask – is there wifi? We don’t care about hot water…”
“We’re learning as we go,” said Boris, “about ourselves and our surroundings…the move itself is a catalyst for inspiration, being here, missing Tel Aviv and being disconnected from so much – it hones your senses, keeps you alert.”
“There is a quiet here,” said Roni.
“It’s already driving me crazy,” Boris interjected.
“I find it very helpful,” Roni said, “It helps me write and create… living together here? It’s not easy.”
“I spend most of my day busy plotting how to kill her and dispose of the body,” said Boris.
“I should think you’d say,” Roni commented, “thinking of how not to make her mad…”
How do they feel as Israelis in Berlin?
“Everybody asks us about it,” said Boris, “the Jewish/Israeli thing. I personally don’t find myself dealing with the whole Jewish/Israeli question in my daily life.”
“I do, very much,” said Roni.
“I told you at the beginning of our conversation,” Boris laughed, “There is no connection between the two of us… except that connection we share.”
“I didn’t deal with it in Israel,” Roni continued, “it’s suddenly very interesting to me to think about where I am politically, where I am in terms of my Jewish identity. In the first week I wondered how I would answer if someone asks me where I am from. The first time it happened, I said Tel Aviv not Israel, but I’m proud to say that I am a proud Israeli.”
“It’s not that I’m not a proud Israeli… of course I’m Israeli, with all the baggage that comes along with that, but I’m not seeking it out,” said Boris.
“Wait til we get home,” said Roni.
“I’m the first one in my family who came into Berlin not riding in on a tank,” said Boris, “my grandmother on my mother’s side – her entire family was killed in the Holocaust, but she was saved because she married a Cossack, not a Jew. The ancestors on one side of my family committed pogroms on the ancestors of the other side of my family… those are simply the facts.”
Despite the many complexities, their stay in Berlin has been very productive artistically. In addition to performing, they’ve written a lot of new songs, and despite their different opinions, both agree:
“There is no other dream we want to pursue,” said Roni.
“We don’t want anything other than this,” Boris concurred.
“I’m living the dream,” Roni said, “waking up at noon, eating and sitting down to work on my art. It’s all I want.”
“This experience really focuses you artistically,” said Boris, “everything is different. I love Tel Aviv, but I’m used to it. Here I find myself completely out of my safe zone. Everything is new – people, the way they behave, their attitudes, my own feelings. There is no aspect of my life that has not changed.”
“Uncertainty is the theme,” said Roni.
“I’ve been in one framework or another all my life, and you always know what you’re doing.. I was involved with my music, but I knew what to expect from my daily routine at work … today I don’t know what will happen, what tomorrow will bring… I find myself,” Boris paused, searching for words, then smiled and said, “you learn to enjoy it… for me this experience is kind of like coming out of the closet… wait, I’ll explain… I’m a musician, but for most of my life I didn’t do it seriously so coming here and making music 24/7 was my coming out as a musician… Mom, Dad, I have to tell you something…”
Angellate will be coming back to Tel Aviv for a visit in June for some family time and performances on their home turf – check for performance dates and venues on their facebook page and Midnight East.
***Update: Angellate will be performing at the Levontin Piano Bar on Saturday, June 22nd at 22:00. 13 Levontin Street, Tel Aviv. Entrance FREE!
