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LP
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TAL 033LP
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Rain and experimental music have had an interesting connection for decades. Perhaps as a reminder of the musical quality of rain, but knowing full well that it can only be enjoyed in theory, Razen call their new album Rain Without Rain. In the music of the Brussels collective led by the two multi-instrumentalists Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour, it certainly pours down on the roofs. In fact, the album opens with the sound of pouring rain before we hear the sequence of an oscillator played through a guitar amp on the first track "Lazy, Lazy Eye." The album is the captivating result of a one-night mobile studio field recording in an abandoned pedestrian tunnel in the center of Düsseldorf, and it is finding beauty with brutal(ist) means: recorder, oscillator, guitar amp and reverberation, two musicians and four microphones, early electronics versus early music. "Suicide meet Hildegard von Bingen," as Stefan Schneider, who recorded the session, admits. "Ghostly occurrences," he adds. Brecht Ameel states: "We do put a lot of weight and care on acoustics. On some of our recordings, the room acts as another band member, or as the main 'mixing board'. Most of the albums we have recorded so far are not mixed in the traditional sense: they are simply 'captured,' and we let the room decide what is left on the tapes. The studio recordings, then, give us the possibility of bringing other elements to the fore; precision of interplay, or tiny variations in breathing." The group Razen has existed since 2010 and has since released numerous records on labels such as KRAAK, Marionette and Hands In The Dark. Rain Without Rain is their debut on the Düsseldorf label TAL. If there has been an increased international interest in experimental music from Belgium in recent years, this is not least due to musician collectives such as Razen. In terms of its electro-folkloristic intensity and instrumentation, Razen's music is quite unique worldwide.
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CD
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IMPREC 506CD
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Razen's Postcards From Hereafter was recorded using a 17th century organ tuned at 398 Hz (meantone) in a Belgian cathedral erected in 1305. The ensemble explored, with rich results, the organ's strict and limiting tuning with an arrangement that included hurdy gurdy, recorders, chalumeau, violone and nyckelharpa. The pieces on Postcards From Hereafter explore the crossover between this world and the next with improvised spiritual, religious music. Brussels-based ensemble Razen use the unique timbral and drone characteristics of their chosen string and wind instruments in improvised, instinctive music that mixes pre-industrial, spectral and ethnic dreamtones with trance and medieval mysticism. The group includes Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour as well as Pieter Lenaerts on five-string double bass and sarangi, Paul Garriau on hurdy-gurdy, David Poltrock on Ondes Martenot, Berlinde Deman on serpent, and Jean-Philippe Poncin on chalumeau and bass clarinet. RIYL: Olivier Messiaen, Sun Ra, Popol Vuh.
Over the past twelve years, the Brussels-based ensemble Razen has been forging a singular path that rethinks the idiom of minimalism and pushes it toward a higher plane; tapping the primal root, while pushing toward the future. Founded in 2010 as duo of Brecht Ameel (organ and string instruments) and Kim Delcour (wind instruments), growing and contracting as an ensemble over the years, the band deploys improvisation and the unique timbral and drone characteristics of string and wind instruments to sculpt landscapes of intuitive long tones, combining the trance-inducing roots of music with a progressive vanguardism that seeks the intangible and the unknown. The band's releases are emblematic of the hybrid between psychedelic music, Early Music and contemporary spectral approaches. Razen has performed all over Europe on numerous occasions, on international festivals and well-known venues, from Fylkingen in Stockholm to Berghain in Berlin to the small church of Dranouter (Belgium).
"... an intoxicating sauce of stark and tripped out ritual music... which conspires to keep listeners in a semi-permanent trance state" --Julian Cope (Head Heritage).
"... a heady brew of deep listening music that is almost medieval in mood and wholly reverential in technique" --Edwin Pouncey (Wire Magazine).
"Razen push the drone potential of medieval instruments like hurdy gurdy as well as shawm and recorders... into realms of total sensory overload" --David Keenan (Volcanic Tongue).
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LP
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MARIONETT 019LP
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"Razen is the collective consciousness of core members Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour, who since 2010 have realized themselves through virtuosic and highly expressive improvisations with lesser-heard instruments. Experimenting with repetition of tones through controlled breathing and phrasing, Razen arrive at a synesthetic playground of auditory textures and colorful imagery. The ensemble is carefully orchestrated for every occasion with the intent and desire to escape to environments unbeknownst to them, taking shelter in the fleeting ego-dissolving moments that arise, whether divine or disturbing. While the formula of instrumentation and like-minded peers may appear mundane on paper, it's Brecht and Kim's outlook and imagination beyond musical references that's the immeasurable catalyst to their peculiar pursuits. Conversations about paintings, books, or films ultimately manifest themselves into live performances or album recordings -- with the philosophy of embracing playfulness and exploration through the lens of a child's eye. Only six collaborators have been invited to their inner circle to date. This is mainly attributed to the rarity of finding spiritual counterparts that are seeking freedom outside the confines of written musical scores. Trading notes and rhythms for strokes and color, the band embodies emotive and meditative drones that demand a deep listening state. Joined by Will Guthrie and Paul Garriau, Razen venture into their vision of Arcadia through Regression, proudly presented by Marionette. On this album, Brecht Ameel turns to his trusty prepared harmonium and celesta, while Kim Delcour controls air and breath on various wind and reed instruments. Featuring Will Guthrie on tuned and melodic percussion (timpani, glockenspiel, marimba, vibraphone), the recordings have a distinct flow and fluid movement when compared to some of Razen's previous works where rhythm is taking a backseat. Hurdy-gurdy specialist, Paul Garriau, plays accompanying melodies and drones on Moon, Aether and Nebula. The album's earthly elements deal with survival, timelessness, and simplicity; such as the life affirming rewards of finding refuge and the wonders of observing the interstellar. The unearthly elements pitch this narrative into the realm of mythology and superstition, in the hopes of trying to understand our primeval universe and thrive in the unknown. Regression also addresses Razen's fascination with inhospitable places and how to adapt to the sorrows that come with this sort of brutalism. The resulting destination is a mind and time bending zone -- one that can be reached by riding sound waves that transcend the past, future, and present. Razen on this occasion is: Brecht Ameel: harmonium, celesta Kim Delcour: winds, reeds Will Guthrie: percussion Paul Garriau: hurdy-gurdy on Moon, Aether, and Nebula."
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LP
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K 100LP
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Razen celebrate their ten-year anniversary with Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk, an album that takes a paragraph from CG Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections as a reference point to set off a journey that goes from light to dark, from day to night, from life to death, and back. As much a reflection of primal imagery and rituals of knowledge as a way of coming to terms with anxieties about the chaos of the night, the album concerns itself with the question: who -- or what -- are we in the moments before (re-)birth, before waking up, in the state in between darkness and light. On Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk, the wind instruments and organ stabs of band leaders Kim Delcour and Brecht Ameel are expanded with Pieter Lenaerts' five string double bass and sarangi, Jean-Philippe Poncin's bass clarinet and chalumeau, and Paul Garriau's hurdy gurdy. The album sees the group explore new straight-to-the-gut emotional territory, while simultaneously showcasing Razen's intuitive, continuous investigation of the acoustic properties and resonant possibilities of churches and chapels in the countryside around Brussels; after Remote Hologram (2014) and The Xvoto Reels (2017), this time the St Agatha Church (St.-Agatha-Berchem) functions as the conduit for Razen's acoustic sound jolts. With the past ten years entirely devoted to the search for archetypical timbres and connotations by improvising on early music instruments, it's no wonder that the world of Razen would one day collide with the world of CG Jung and take his writing as an inspiration. A sonic hex tour de force from this unique ensemble, Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk is a present-day, nocturnal emitter of the Coleridge quote that opens Jung's Memories: "He looked at his own soul with a Telescope. What seemed all irregular he saw and shewed to be beautiful Constellations and he added to the Consciousness hidden worlds within worlds." Includes download code.
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LP
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K 086LP
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Brussels-based group Razen present Endrhymes, a work of hardcore melodic minimalism and raw, dystopian deep listening. Exclusive artwork by Bryan Lewis Saunders. The four pieces on Endrhymes thrive on an almost compulsory focus and improvisation carefully developed during many concerts. As a trio, Razen erase the acoustic deep listening from their previous album to explore territory of raw, melodic, and psychedelic minimalism that refers to the massive works of Louis Andriessen. The first and last tracks are raw, pulsating improvisations built out of short, melodic motives that create a slowly changing arch of musical tension, while the centerpieces destroy the musical center and drop the listener into a cold, dystopian place, left alone and subject to powers beyond knowledge. Razen leave the listener no choice: immerse. Layout by Jeroen Wille, Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker. Includes download code for MP3, FLAC, and other formats. Edition of 320.
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