Aviv Geffen
Visionary artist and compassionate human being Aviv Geffen has announced a show at London Proud Galleries on Tuesday 27th January. A super star in his home of Israel, where he outsells and often outshines, Madonna, U2 and Coldplay, an army of loyal fans have helped him reach worldwide sales of over 2.5 million. Yet he remains deeply connected to progression and peace.
His first song released in 1993 the controversial ‘Cloudy Now’ – which has since become his anthem – rebelliously featuring the F-word and was banned from Israeli radio, yet such was his appeal that it topped the charts.
Two years later he publically made peace with politician Yitzhak Rabin at a political rally after singing ‘Cry for You’ and moments later Rabin was tragically assassinated. This has never deterred his hopeful spirit and Geffen continues to make hits, sell out 40,000 seater concerts and his female fanbase swells with young teenage women drawn to his sharp and quirky David Bowie-esque style, and his conscious and thought provoking lyrics.
Now a man in his early thirties with all the homeland success he could dream of tucked under his belt, he’s approaching a whole new audience, the Europeans. Geffen has been recording his first English language album with super producer Trevor Horn, the Grammy Award winning man behind luminary acts like; Grace Jones, Seal, Tina Turner, Paul McCartney, Simple Minds, Mike Oldfield, Marc Almond, and Belle & Sebastian.
Horn and Geffen together are creating a new sound, with more edge compared to his previous recordings and plenty of that zeitgeist which the singer-songwriter is best known for as he gears up for worldwide success. Helping him explore this new musical ground is David Bowie’s pianist, Mike Garson. Fourteen Hebrew albums in and fifteen years of encouraging the future generations to think for themselves Geffen can count David Bowie himself and Lou Reed as avid admirers.
With the new album campaign, Geffen is introducing the F-Gen competition. With F-Gen, Geffen is inviting the next generation of creative talent to be involved in the music video, artwork and styling. Unlike many similar competitions F-Gen winners will receive a substantial budget to create their vision and a substantial financial contribution to the nourishment of their talents.
Geffen, by way of a song he wrote called ‘Everybody’s Child’ is currently putting pressure on the Israeli government to expedite a deal to bring home a soldier by the name of Gilad Shalit who was captured in June 2006 and has been held hostage in the Gaza Strip since. Remarkably the government seem to be listening and the song now all over Israeli news, Geffen is donating all profits from the song to the campaign for Shalit’s release and urging people to help bring the soldier home.
It is time to introduce Aviv Geffen to the world, to welcome in his sweeping smooth vocals and powerful lyrical style. Music needs a man who isn’t afraid to speak his mind with all the skill of the super star musician and singer-songwriter he already is, and the world needs inspiration from a young man as compassionate and engaging as Aviv.