VARGO – Goodbye Is A New Beginning
When you talk about music that makes you feel the warmth of a gentle summer breeze, has an effect on your soul like a soft balm, formulates great depth in the lightness of pure beauty – then you talk about VARGO. The musical project from Hamburg has been giving the hearts and minds of chill-out lovers a lot of treats, using a perfectly balanced melange of songs, sounds, sensuality and shimmering sinus waves. Behind all this is the breathtakingly intimate dialogue between Ansgar Üffink’s songs and soundscapes and Steohanie Hundertmark’s voice, which is as heavenly ethereal as it is genuine and real. A team that got together to take off to soaring flights. One can find VARGO tracks on more than 200 compilations. Their own two artist albums „Beauty“ and „Precious“ as well as their internationally celebrated home-made compilation series „VARGO Lounge“ and „Lauschkost“ were sold worldwide with great success. And now, after 14 years, with the new album „Goodbye Is A New Beginning“, this powerful team work comes to an end.
It is however not a sad goodbye. On the contrary, as Ansgar Üffink puts it: „I feel completely different about this album than about the ones before. It closes a circle, it’s the end of the era Stephanie. It’s a kind of closure and a look back. And when I think of the album, I’m looking back with gratitude, not forward.“
The two have experienced, moved and played so much together. There is a history. Ansgar is very grateful for all the things they have lived through and created together. „These 14 years of work with Steffi were a dream. Steffi has the perfect voice for VARGO, she is a wonderful person. We remain very good friends. She just wants to withdraw from showbiz a little.“
VARGO’s songs are built to last and possess intensity as well as complexity of sound. They are also brilliant in terms of songwriting. This is once again demonstrated on the new album, whose songs were written in the course of the last three years. Whether it’s something emotional and spherical like the opener „Awakening“, a sublime anthem like „Silver Lining“ with its irresistible hook line or easy-going uptempo tracks like „Good Life“ with its Brazilian House flair: with each song VARGO shape the essence of inner calmness and outer splendour, combining these layers into compact chill-out symphonies.
One central message remains, as Ansgar puts it: „For me, VARGO represents an ideal. A personal ideal of life which I strive to live. In this respect, VARGO is probably more a symbol than a band. The music should have a positive effect. It should help us people to find ourselves and be true to ourselves. To find our inner potential and use it. And all of this please without finger wagging and know-it-all attitude. It was always important to me to move people with my music. Sounds and harmonies are vibrations like colours, light, clouds and patterns in these profound soundscapes. Rhythms like plastic, repeating elements that inspire me to groove along. And all of it is swinging, pulsating, vibrating and changing. It’s a dance. And when everything is perfect, it feels very agreeable and I start to swing too. And many other people as well, I hope.“
With the aptly titled „Goodbye Is A New Beginning“ an era comes to an end. It does however not at all imply the end of VARGO. Ansgar tells us how he likes to look at the future. „I love to have a white page in front of me and start afresh. There is a clear vision of what VARGO is going to be in the future and of what we want to do. But I don’t want to tell you too much – only that you have every reason to be excited!“ Which we are – every single person who chilled, loved, laughed and lived with VARGO’s songs.
