Georges Goerens, aka Bartleby Delicate, is at a turning point in his musical career Maison Moderne/Patricia Pitsch

Georges Goerens, aka Bartleby Delicate, is at a turning point in his musical career Maison Moderne/Patricia Pitsch

By November while at Sonic Visions he was invited to support Bender und Schillinger on their Germany tour, before which he recorded and released his first EP and began a masters in theatre studies at the University of Luxembourg.

“It was really intense this year. Sometimes you can’t wait,” he says, calmly counting off the fifty or so concerts he’s now done as a solo act, alongside the gigs he still does with Seed To Tree.

Goerens’ calmness comes in large part from experience and perhaps also the four years spent studying philosophy in Germany. He has come a long way since jamming with friends in his neighbourhood, has played in bands for almost nine years, and is now using that know-how to coach other emerging artists.

“I think I’ve quite a good insight in what life in a band is like and how I can help,” he says, explaining that he is currently coaching a talented young singer called Karma, performing as the artist C’est Karma. Coaching others and giving workshops, he says, is always a two-way street. “I’m just as much a teacher as a student, because I’m learning while teaching,” the philosopher says.

“As an artist, you need people see your work has value”

So far he has been happy to follow the career path fate has cleared for him but he has now reached a turning point. “I’ve different incomes: a bit from vocal coaching, a bit from concerts. At the moment, I’m trying to figure out what could enable me to go on doing what I love and survive financially,” he says. In a country like Luxembourg with its high cost of living, such a question is common sense. Goerens says he has reached the point where he won’t do gigs for free any more. “As an artist, you need people see your work has value,” he says. “In Luxembourg, I’m really happy. I think there’s huge respect from venues towards the music I make. I feel people pay me fairly.”

He says venue bookers and promoters are also very open to booking him. But, as he points out, Luxembourg is a limited market. “That’s why people like me, who aim to do it professionally, aim for an international market.” Most of his solo concerts so far have been abroad. In addition to the 12 shows he did with Bender und Schillingen in Germany, Goerens has played festivals abroad and is setting his sights on Hamburg-based Reeperbahn in the autumn. “It’s a festival where there are a lot of people from the business present. I’m well aware I need to be professionally prepared,” he says.

One big advantage of still being at this stage in his music career is that Goerens is relatively free to experiment, playing around with the way he performs and interacts with his audience in a way he couldn’t do as Seed To Tree. “When I jumped onstage on my own for the first time, I quite liked the intimacy I could create. That’s something I try to reproduce every time I play.”

Alter ego

The release concert for his EP at the Rotondes in April saw him refuse the stage and perform on the same level as the audience to enhance this rapport. The artist’s name, “Bartleby Delicate”, also helped him to explore his onstage persona further. It is inspired by the melancholic character in the Herman Melville short story “Bartleby the Scrivener”, whose reprise “I would rather not” struck a chord with Goerens. For the musician, the story’s key message was that every individual has a choice in life. “This Bartleby Delicate alter ego and Georges Goerens, the artist behind it, are kind of mutating into something that’s hard to take apart,” he says, adding “I can exaggerate more as Bartleby Delicate.”

The freedom, he says, has enabled him to approach his work from an artists’ perspective, and reframe his role as a performer-storyteller. He says with each playing he tries to put himself in the situation of the story being told through the lyrics. Even the banter with audience between songs is carefully shaped to elicit a certain response. What emerges from this exploratory stage will be distilled in Goerens’ next album, which he is already working on.

Catch Bartleby Delicate in his next intimate gig at the Rotondes as part of Congés Annulés on 16 August when he will present “Siblings”, a new song from his EP.