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viewing 1 To 18 of 18 items
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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 098LP
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Het Interstedelijk Harmoniumverbond ("The Intercity Harmonium Alliance") is the collaborative construction carrying Glen Steenkiste, Brecht Ameel, David Edren, and Steve Marreyt on their quest for yet undiscovered dimensions of drone. Each member resides in one of the Flemish province capital cities (Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges), they all play harmonium and share the genuine interest for temporality in music. Initiated from Steenkiste's idea to expand the solo harmonium of Hellvete into a more dialectic and immersive format, this new league had its premiere on Eastern Daze V festival in November 2018. The release is an uncompromised gesture claiming one of today's main scarcities: the liberated and emancipated attention. The drone sound has a rare capacity to reflect upon the most delicate patterns of the human experience of time, hitting straight to its core: duration. Long, layered tones of four harmoniums stretch from past towards future, and from emotionally charged warmth of an ensemble to the coldness of post-human electronics. They trigger an uninterrupted flow of music and call for an intensified and extended ritual of contemplative listening on multiple levels. In regard to that, the recording process was carried out with an ambition to capture both micro sounds and detailed textures from each of the harmoniums, as well as the surround sound blended through the acoustics of space. The record comes with the extensive liner notes by the renowned essayist Sven Vitse (in Dutch). Edition of 300.
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CD
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K 097CD
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Chik White is the moniker of Darcy Spidle, jaw harpist, tape collagist, non-institutional locally-sourced field recordist, and founder of the OBEY Convention festival. Spidle was part of the Canadian crust-punk scene in his younger years, but he eventually evolved towards more adventurous sides of music. In 2009, after obtaining a collection of jaw harps, his musical output took its most dramatic turn. Since then, he has released a string of tapes and records on seminal underground labels like Feeding Tube and Chocolate Monk. His latest release, Guts Magnet Sea, is a commissioned album for the Braublff (materie und laut) series; it collects 12 new pieces. The main core was captured during walks to an islet close to Spidle's home. He taped environmental sounds and himself playing the harp aloud. Then, the tapes were thrown into the ocean, becoming co-author for his micro-compositions. The salt disintegrated the magnetic tape and added burbling and grunting noises to the original recordings. As such, the pieces deal with questions of authorship and ownership. The disintegrated pieces are paired to compositions in which the jaw harp acts as a tool to unleash Spidle's inner body sound. A jaw harp is macabre at its core, as it can only produce sound through the cavernous skull. Chik White uses the instrument to jam with the landscape and weather, holding open a discussion between outsider and outside. Spidle's music is a proposition to see culture as a brutal and vital engagement between humans and the natural world, rather than seeing it as an artificial division. At its core, one can hear a humble disposition for humankind, a provisory act in the complex cycle of destruction and rebirth by nature. Jewel case and fold-out insert with exclusive interview and essay by Spidle.
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K 096LP
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Red Brut is the moniker of Marijn Verbiesen (part of Sweat Tongue and JSCA). As Red Brut she is isolated, displaying a highly talented ear for day-to-day sounds, musique concréte composition, and spontaneous sound collage. The Kraak record series -- documenting off-stream's currents -- presents her self-titled debut, recorded at home and re-arranged in the come-down of an immersive tour in Japan. The seven chapters document an intuitive and reflective journey through sensitive amateurism and hi-end musique concréte. The main instruments are cassettes, but unlike the continuous strain of post-noise releases, Verbiesen's music is highly personal, subtle, and displays an ever curious and astonished mind. Sounds of gaming interweave with brutal synth oscillations, melancholic melodies, and sensual-absent poetry from the aether. Although rooted in the sinister absurdism of early 2000 experimentalism, her music embraces and redefines the concept of "music of the universe", coined by John Cage, Daphne Oram, and alikes. This stand-out record is a sketchbook documenting a wide array of obscured emotions, unveiling the inner soul of a highly talented and unique voice in avant-garde tape music. Artwork by Marijn Verbiesen; design: rr-jw. Edition of 300.
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2X7"
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K 095EP
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Braublff is an archival piece with exclusive work by the legendary Gerhard Rühm, Arf Arf, Alessandro Bosetti, and Tomomi Adachi. Braublff (Materie Und Laut) is a series of live events organized by De Player (Rotterdam) and Kraak (Ghent) and brings together contemporary vocal poets, text-sound composers, and language-based artists with the pioneering work of the avant-garde. It deals with the question: "Where and how does language transform into music?" The idea for this series of events originated from a shared obsession for the work of vocal poets and Lazlo Maholy Nagy's notion of New Plasticism.
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LP
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K 094LP
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"Music is an openhearted gamble; whatever lengthens the day, whatever gets you through the night."
Next to being one of the core members of the acoustic deep listening ensemble Razen, Ameel Brecht is a trained guitar player who has a life-long involvement with the instrument's repertoire under his belt. On his debut album Polygraph Heartbeat, he puts his guitar-heart on the line by means of nine compositions for steel resonator and resonator mandolin. The album is a reflection of polyphonic music as seen through a multi-colored and highly personal lens, as Ameel's guitar idiom crossbreeds a classical technique and weird open tunings with a love for early ragtime, slide grandmasters, and baroque music. As is the case with Razen's body of work, Brecht's solo pieces confront because of their pureness and their focus on essential sound. Clear, precise phrases leave room for silence and slowly open a passageway to an undefined in-between world. Carried by a brutal and razor-sharp slide, nervousness, and a languidly brooding atmosphere occasionally cut through the stillness. The transparent lyricism is not without a number of sonic shocks that expose Ameel as a former club-dweller and as fan of the Voivod guitarist Denis D'amour. Polygraph Heartbeat is an album which shows a committed musician who employs control and craftsmanship in order to dissect the condition humaine of the 21st century.
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CD
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K 092CD
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Almost 20 years ago, Jürgen De Blonde debuted on Kraak with the nowadays unfindable and almost visionary album 1 (1998). It was the starting point for a vital and wondrous exploration that lead him over paths of glitch, idm, shoe gaze, hypnagogic pop, improvised music, straight forward synth music, field recordings, and kraut... In the middle of this ungraspable adventure through contemporary electronic music, Köhn stands as a genuine artist that stayed true to the curious spirit of the DIY knob twiddling and boggling boy he once was. Kraak present his seventh album on the label, Kreis Plön, which documents and envisions 20 years of exploring. It's an album that is about a fusion of the past and the future, of separation and reconfiguration, of mourning and rejoicing, of noise and peace. Kreis Plön is about geolocation. It's about probable fiction and looking for bits of different puzzles that fit together. It's an exercise in linear and perpendicular coherence devoid of any objective logic. In the middle of the album an artist is envisioning his place in the now, questioning how or when he got there, as he links memories to imaginary places, and real places, to imaginary histories. Kreis Plön stands as such a masterpiece that bluntly envisions the future of electronic music. Mastered by Karel De Backer; Recorded and produced by Jürgen De Blonde; Artwork and design by Ruttens-Wille.
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LP
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K 092LP
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LP version. Includes download code. Almost 20 years ago, Jürgen De Blonde debuted on Kraak with the nowadays unfindable and almost visionary album 1 (1998). It was the starting point for a vital and wondrous exploration that lead him over paths of glitch, idm, shoe gaze, hypnagogic pop, improvised music, straight forward synth music, field recordings, and kraut... In the middle of this ungraspable adventure through contemporary electronic music, Köhn stands as a genuine artist that stayed true to the curious spirit of the DIY knob twiddling and boggling boy he once was. Kraak present his seventh album on the label, Kreis Plön, which documents and envisions 20 years of exploring. It's an album that is about a fusion of the past and the future, of separation and reconfiguration, of mourning and rejoicing, of noise and peace. Kreis Plön is about geolocation. It's about probable fiction and looking for bits of different puzzles that fit together. It's an exercise in linear and perpendicular coherence devoid of any objective logic. In the middle of the album an artist is envisioning his place in the now, questioning how or when he got there, as he links memories to imaginary places, and real places, to imaginary histories. Kreis Plön stands as such a masterpiece that bluntly envisions the future of electronic music. Mastered by Karel De Backer; Recorded and produced by Jürgen De Blonde; Artwork and design by Ruttens-Wille.
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LP
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K 093LP
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Henry Andersen is a Brussels-based visual artist and composer. Trained as a minimal and reductionist composer under the wings of Peter Ablinger, he moved from music into visual art, writing, and sound performances. His debut vinyl is a recording of the long-running piece "Stanzas" or "the Law of the Good Neighbour". On each side, a pair of his friends read simultaneously from a list of words. The list is an unfinished result of a word game Andersen has been playing for several years. Stanzas seems to be a precise text-sound composition, a liquid and elegant piece of concrete poetry that reveals the individual qualities of the voices and their interpersonal relation. But what sounds like a hardcore conceptual and idealist composition has a lot more to it. Being an heir to a playful and prosaic Cagean and Ashleyan tradition, the list of words is a score that acts as a field for an infinite amount of possibilities. Andersen documents some of these many possible outcomes, expressing an urge to be a human body in space, interrelated with others. The composer reveals on the record another face of conceptualism: as a material, personal and truly moving beauty. Text by Henry Andersen; Mastered by Christophe Albertijn; Recorded by David Stampfli; Printed by Gerard Herman and Henry Andersen; Design by rr-jw and Henry Andersen. Handmade sleeve; Includes download code; Edition of 300.
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LP
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K 082LP
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2013 release. Lieven Martens Moana's first album under his birth name marks an important shift in his oeuvre. While still indebted to the universe created under his moniker Dolphins Into The Future, Music From The Guardhouse shows the artist reaching the shores of his mental island, fully matured. This is where a new journey begins, a musical research program within the "composer genre". Through literature and landscape painting, Martens develops a language that is as close to the personal-spiritual documentary as to contemporary classical music. Quoting Percy Bysshe Shelley in its opening piece, the tone of "Aria, The Cloud" is set for an intimate but extroverted modernist take on neo-romanticism. The album is conceived as a play for magnetic tape recorder, using field recordings and midi devices as its round characters. Rich musical intertextuality, ranging from Baudelaire to Toru Takemitsu and Messiaen, cleverly chaperones the theater of sound, emphasizing every shift and every detail while still allowing time and space for reflection between the acts. More than ever, Martens's work is the result of a deep process of enlightening. It shows the becoming of a mediating poet who summons the spirits of Nature, of the Sensual, of the Unspoken. A quatrain of Emerson is whispered in a ghost appearance: "All day the waves assailed the rock, / I heard no church bell chime; / The sea-beat scorns the minster clock / And breaks the glass of Time." All along the deliberately chosen archaisms are beautifully transcended, making these compositions a constant game of question and answer between past and present, between man and art. This album lays bare modern man's need of myth, of classic beauty. Music From The Guardhouse could be regarded a corner stone, a blue print for the future of composition to come, a lecture in honesty and depth.
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K 077LP
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2012 release. Kraak present a reissue of Patrick Conrad's Gelukkig Als In Het Bijzijn Van Een Vrouw, originally published by Pink Editions & Productions in 1973. In 1972, Belgian poets Nic van Bruggen and Patrick Conrad founded Pink Poets, a group of mainly artists from Antwerp that shared a love for quality restaurants and alcohol. In 1973 Conrad recorded Gelukkig Als In Het Bijzijn Van Een Vrouw with roots man Roland van Campenhout and two session musicians. The record is one of the very few psychedelic treasures in Belgium. Originally pressed in an edition of 300 copies, most of them have vanished, becoming a true collector's item for psych heads and poetry lovers. Not only does it represent a crucial period in Conrad's oeuvre, it is also a truly unique cross media collaboration of its time. Conrad reads his poems through an echo chamber, backed up and interspersed with improvised hippy-esque folk and effect experiments. On the cover, Conrad the dandy poses next to a sculpture by Charles Albert Szukalski. The inside of the gatefold sports the poems against a background of opium smokers. This reissue comes with an elaborate essay on the work and a reproduction of the poster of the live presentation at gallery De Zwarte Panter in Antwerp in the same year. Gatefold sleeve; Includes an eight-page booklet (29x29 cm) on pink paper. All copies are signed by Patrick Conrad; Edition of 300 (hand-numbered).
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LP
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K 091LP
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Typhonian Highlife is the new moniker of Spencer Clark. Clark is the ultimate shape-shifter, a trickster continuously mutating from a sci-fi hero, into a mystic guru or into a speculative visionary. As Typhonian Highlife, he assimilates juxtapositions of the natural world and fantastic technology to reanimate the manneristic tradition. His compositions envision possible futures and speculative pasts. They imagine a new vision upon mankind, as a mythical underwater creature who creates meaning through a prosaic mysticism. The World Of Shells works as an dream expedition that has overflowed itself into real time. Through continual material-world visualization, a technologically natured music unfolds as a series of movements outlining the existence of a mythological African creature. Travelling through Hollywood, Hanging Rock, Australia, and The Ear of Dionysus in Sicily, the creature was placed, and has enacted a music and art form that explores a sci-fi aquatic and wind-blown desert fusion to uncover the life and wanderings of this non-material being. Mastered by Christophe Albertijn. Artwork by Spencer Clark.
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LP
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K 089LP
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Sea Urchin is the Berlin-based brainchild of the Italian Francesco Cavaliere and the Egyptian-Austrian Leila Hassan. Being core members of the underground, they already released a 7" in 2012 on Das Andere Selbst and Solar Hype Dance in 2014 on Stenze Quo Musik. Cavaliere has also released Gancio Cielo (H 024LP, 2016) and Gancio Cielo 2 - Il Gruppo Respingi Comete (H 030LP, 2016) in 2016. Yaqaza is their long-awaited vinyl debut. The duo surprises with a multi-colored, mystic and intriguing collage of deconstructed pop hits, Italian music concrète, King Tubby-like dub and Algerian Rai. It is no coincidence that Yaqaza is Arabic for "daydream, reverie". The record is a virtual reality labyrinth in which the listener wanders around sleepwalking, constantly opening new doors and sliding between tableaux vivants. The poetic vocals by Hassan, alternately in Arabic and English, is an absent guide that takes the listener to ethereal micro-cosmoses. Dubby baselines, a cold drum computer, analog electronics and subtle tape collages come together in an intriguing and wondrous web of unravelling side plots. Yaqaza is a magic realist frame narrative. The side roles are performed by Sicilian salt miners, Bolaji Badejo (actor of the "alien" in Alien (1979)) or Cheba Nouria (an Algerian pop star).
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7"
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K 088EP
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Shetahr present their second vinyl release, Hidden Dragon. Each song is a potential hit combining polished anger with naive childlike rhymes. This trio is born out of the underbelly of the Bruxhells underground scene. Through their many energetic live shows, which blasted audiences away in Europe, they evolved into a tight unit writing short no wave songs based on poppy hooks. The ghost of Arto Lindsay and DNA is woven through their sound, if he would dance with the Beat Happening. Art by Shetahr. 400 copies. Mastered and cut by Fred Alstadt. Recorded & mixed by Peter Van de Veire.
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Book
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KP 003BK
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Chronicling the first 10 years of the Belgian Sloow Tapes label, Mellow My Mind gives an overview of all the tapes, broadsides, LPs, and booklets published from 2005-2015. From Keijo's desolate avant/acid folk moves to Fursaxa's spiked organ drones with a short detour by way of Ira Cohen's Akashic Records. Fully annotated with detailed information about the tapes, promo texts, reviews, and a few texts written especially for this publication by Bart De Paepe, Matthew Parry, and Louise Landes Levi. Limited edition of 300 copies. Otabind-bound softcover; 96 pages; 17.01 x 24.01 cm.
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LP
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K 087LP
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A true gem from the Portuguese underground. Sparse electronics blended with mystic vocalism -- think Ghédalia Tazartes or Diamanda Galás. Deep in the Portuguese underground, Calhau! constructs an absurd universe in which nightmares, rural Catholic mysticism, and surrealist spirituality play the lead role. Performance, movie, and music contribute to one melancholic and cruel whole. The music is deeply rooted in Roman mysticism, using the dark hand of alchemy to beseech the insane 21st century. The duo sounds like an updated version of Ghédalia Tazartes and Throbbing Gristle, blending tape collages and sparse electronics, not unlike the PAN back catalog. First and foremost, Calhau! are their own island, at the point where Old Europe disappears into the sea. Ú is their third album. The A-side builds upon five song particles, in which a grotesque voice floats over hard samples and rough electronics. The voice sings in Portuguese, or Latin, maybe French, or Mongolian throat singing. Vom Grill's gurgles could be a reference. Side B is a re-release of the limited 2014 mini-CD A Corte D'Urubu. It's one long droney piece, a result of a collaboration with a choir, recorded on the Portuguese coast. The composition is a loose interpretation of Gregorian pieces, like Stabat Mater and Veni Creator Spiritus, mixing choral works with gritty synths and sinister opera. With Ú, Calhau! establish their status as the most talented duo of the Portuguese avant-garde.
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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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2LP
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KED 005LP
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"This three-sided LP is a unique collaboration by some extraordinary talents, working under the moniker of the Afternoon Saints, better known individually as Lee Renaldo (Sonic Youth), David Watson, Christian Marclay and Gunter Muller. The Shirley Jangle is an intimate and subtle meeting place of noise, sound art and experimental improvisation. Three sides of bubbling audio biosphere and a fourth side etching by Lee Renaldo, made specifically for this release. The album was recorded at the famed Echo Canyon Studio, on Murray Street, in downtown New York, mixed and edited by the one and only Jim O'Rourke." Super deluxe, beautiful gatefold sleeve with full color printed inner sleeves.
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