On stage yesterday, creating today: ELIK TARA GROUP between concerts and the studio

A season of performance, a season of creation

For a while, there were the dates, the soundchecks, the lights, the warmth of bodies pressed close together in front of the stage.
There were those beautiful concerts that people still talk about, the ones where everything aligned: the music, the audience, the moment.

Today, it’s not exactly that season anymore.
For the moment, we are focusing on something else:
composition, writing, production.

This is not a step backwards.
It’s a natural movement: after giving so much on stage, we need to return to the source, to the place where songs are born.

These concerts that stay with you

Even though we are not currently on stage, past concerts are not “behind us”.
They are within us.

There is :

• those evenings when the audience sang louder than us

• those moments when complete silence filled the room after a sustained note

• those impromptu fits of laughter between songs

• those glances exchanged between musicians when everything starts to run “by itself”

These concerts taught us a lot:
how a song lives on outside the studio
how a refrain finds its true form in people’s mouths
how an emotion circulates in a room.

Even today, when we write, these memories serve as our compass.
We often ask ourselves:
“Will this song make people want to sing along with us? Will it hold up on stage? Will it be able to comfort someone at the back of the room?”

Today: a look behind the scenes

For now, there may not be any new dates to announce yet.
But there is something else, just as valuable: hidden work.

We are :

• searching for sounds

• to refine texts

• to compose melodies that resonate with the heart

• to build a soundscape that resembles us even more

It’s a quieter season on the outside, but very intense on the inside.
A season of laboratory work, prayer, doubt, enthusiasm, “we erase and start again”, small victories when finally, a song “clicks”.

What the public doesn’t yet see is that every hour spent writing and producing is a seed for the concerts of tomorrow.
The future scenes are being prepared here, in this period of apparent withdrawal.

The link between yesterday and tomorrow

Talking about concerts on this blog, even if there aren’t any “at the moment,” is important for several reasons:

1. Honor what has already been experienced
These concerts shaped ELIK TARA GROUP.
They confirmed that our music had a place, that it touched people, that it did good.
It is important to recognize them, to name them, to tell what happened there.

2. Explain where we are now
You can honestly say:
“For now, we are not on the road. We are preparing what comes next, in depth.”
Those who love you will better understand this apparent silence.
They will see that it is inhabited.

3. Extend a thread to those who are waiting
Even though we are not giving a date yet, we can say:
“What we are building now in the studio is also for the day when we will be facing you again.”

What we want to experience again on stage

Looking ahead, there are some things we already know:

• We want concerts where we sing together, not just “for” the audience.

• We want moments where our languages (French, Ewondo, Creole, etc.) respond to each other in front of people who, sometimes, are discovering them for the first time.

• We want spaces where songs like “Je cherche encore mes mots” or others to come will allow people to share their joys and their hurts.

• We want scenes where we can laugh, pray, dance, and also be silent, without masks.

The current season of composition and production serves this purpose:
to prepare pieces that, one day, will be able to carry those moments.

Until we meet again live

This article might be a way of telling you:

For now, you will see us less on stage, but we have not forgotten you.
We are working behind the scenes so that the next time we meet face to face, there will be even more truth, even more depth, even more light in what we sing.

The beautiful concerts of the past are our memory.
The songs we write today are our promise.

And one day, these two paths will meet again, where it all began:
in front of you, on stage.