Blog: Revolutions per day

Morc

anneliesmonsereSome years ago I came across the music of Annelies Monseré due to a collaboration she did with In Gowan Ring/Birchbook… although it was on  my want list since then I never bought a record of her until recently… not sure why now but most likely as I am listening to quite some tranquil and folklore inspired tunes lately…

I ordered her 10″ vinyl EP entitled “Nest” directly from the label… being Morc Records from Belgium… a label specialised in small limited edition vinyls, tapes and cd’s… only vinyls lately… the sounds they put out are mostly drones, ambient and folklore inspired stuff… or all of that in the mix…

Label boss Wim Lecluyse is a musician himself too and releases under the alias of Circle Bros… his album “Haven” is really something to check out if you are into ambient and drone like music with a lo-fi touch… next to electronics he puts in some guitars and vague vocals… resulting in soundscapes to dream away on for sure…

With 70 releases up to now there is lots of music to discover for fans of this kind of stuff… if you are not familiar at all here is one track of Annelies Monseré to start out with… sort of Nico inspired in one way or another this one…

Vrystaete @ Kapitaal

brunnen_printsYesterday during the Radio Resistencia session at Kapitaal Utrecht I started with printing the artwork for the Brunnen and Diamantener Oberhof releases coming soon on Vrystaete… well actually only the Brunnen as this is was so much work… but very nice to do…

Hans_Brunnen_printingThe Brunnen art print which comes with the record is a linocut made by Dutch visual artist (and musician) Hans de Wolf (he helped out printing as well). I had never printed a linocut before… first all was measured and set up so the printed piece is always on the same part of the paper… then you need to set the pressure on the printing press depending on how you want the print to come out… darker (more pressure) or lighter (less pressure)…

M_Brunnen_printingThen the ink needs to be warmed up to make it fluid… then for every print you need to put ink on the linocut and put it in the right spot of the printing press… then lay a piece of paper on it gently so it does not get messy… then a sort of small carpet / rubber mat goes on top of this and then you gently turn the wheel of the printing press so the linocut and paper are going underneath the press… if all goes well and you are able to get the mat and paper of the linocut what out messing up you have a super nice print… a print which needs to dry for about three days… and this 150 times in this case…

But… it is super nice to do this… it is meditative in a way… you only focus on the printing and all the rest fades into the background… and of course it is so much nicer to print the artwork for the records you release yourself instead of getting a sleeve from the pressing plant…

So… next are the Diamantener Oberhof prints… a three colour silkscreen print…

(Action photos by Hans D.)

Radio Resistencia live with Former Descent @ Kapitaal Utrecht

flyer jan 2015This sunday 18th of January there will be a Radio Resistencia session at Kapitaal Utrecht. The line up is dj M., Former Descent (live) and dj Alacidus.

Former Descent will be presenting his recent release on Gooiland Elektro…  so expect tough beats and a melodic touch… all done on the Tenori-on

We start at 15.00 hour and end around 18.00 hour… entrance is free… there are drinks for sale like locally brewed beers..

If you are in the area we like to see you there… and here is a track by Former Descent to get in the mood…

Skeppet

skeppetToday a package from the Not Not Fun label arrived with some excellent new stuff (as mostly is the case with this label)… both for my own pleasure and hopefully yours… as some copies will be up in the webshop soon…

Next to a 12″ by the ever amazing Umberto there was the latest LP by tropical wave / weird pop / psych pop musician Maria Minerva… but the best record in the box was by Skeppet…

Skeppet is a Swedish psychedelic outfit which first came to my attention with the split album they did with Street Drinkers on the now defunct label Release The Bats… this split album is all kinds of awesome… both sides but especially the Skeppet side…

I was really looking forward to more music from this duo and the new album entitled “Phase 3” is simply superb… so the waiting was worth it for sure… Skeppet play a soft, sweet, light sounding, soothing kind of psychedelic music… it is playful and trippy… it sounds a lot like classic 60’s acid rock stuff in many ways… possibly like Country Joe And The Fish in their most psychedelic mood… the music is sunny and would have fitted perfectly in the 60’s hippie scene in the USA… think Haight Ashbury on a nice sunny afternoon… a bit of dozing off in the sun or shade with some drinks or anything else… simply perfect… I am getting in the mood for the first days of spring for sure with Skeppet spinning on the turntable here…

Below is the 8 minute edit of the over 20 minutes piece on the A side of the record… enjoy!

Rockumentaries

doemaarFrom time to time I like to watch documentaries about pop and rock music… in the past I saw a really good one on Nico and more recently there was a very nice one on gabber / hardcore…

This weekend I saw two… one on Dutch band Doe Maar… an 80’s band which played reggae inspired pop music… in a very short period of time they became the biggest thing in Holland… the best thing about this documentary were the very open conversations with the band members reflecting on the past… they pictured the two driving musicians and they themselves told about their difference views on music and the band… it was nice to see how they still got along very well after all these years… without being frustrated or being in a fight as you often hear in such cases…

The other thing was something I never realised… they became very popular with a very young audience… teens and even younger… this frustrated them as they made serious music and were no boy band as we know boy bands today, created especially for such a specific young audience and to make some cash…

The band told this was also the reason they split up… that they did not find that their music reached the people it was meant for and did not come across as intended… funny detail is that I used to listen to this band a lot… when I was very young… when I was about 7 years old…

imihendrixAnother documentary I saw was on Jimi Hendrix… a musician I never liked before… I have never bought any of his music… even though I am a big fan of 60’s music… it never triggered me or made sense to me… the documentary was great with lots of old footage and some friends of him still alive telling about him…

The footage from Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 is legendary and I knew some of the images but never saw it this way before… his performance was amazing… how he played the guitar and how the whole performance was turned into a ritual with as climax setting the guitar on fire and summoning the fire to rise…

And… surprisingly I liked quite a lot of the music of Jimi Hendrix which was featured on the documentary and I will get into this soon to see if I like his work better now as in the past…

Vrystaete

Vrystaete_1_1Last year I created the Vrystaete label for sounds I am interested in and that did not fit in the existing series of Enfant Terrible. For a part these sounds it goes back to my long love for traditional music… what one few people know for example is that I dj’ed folk music for quite some time and that I released a compilation cd with contemporary folk music back in 2004 in collaboration with Folkwoods Festival.

For a part I neglected folk music due to the focus on Enfant Terrible… but I have always  listened to some folk sounds… especially to the weirder stuff from Fonal, but also to classics as Pentangle and Steeleye Span and to some more modern stuff like Hedningarna, Garmarna and more recently to the darker side of folk by Wardruna…

Vrystaete is not meant to be a “folk label” but I am releasing some folk related sounds on it… like the Niedowierzanie already was and the upcoming Diamantener Oberhof and Brunnen also have some links to folk music in their own ways…

Some people asked me about the name Vrystaete where it comes from and what it means… if you translate it into English it would be “Freestate”… when it concerns my label it means that the label is a freestate (for me) to release  adventurous music on… so to speak “free spirited” music… no cliche sounds and not music which is genre and style bound… it is also music for people with an open mind and taste and who like to hear new sounds and are not bound by any subcultural dogma’s… thus simply people who have a true interest in music…

The spelling of Vrystaete relates to the part of Holland where I live and the Vrystaete label is established… in my village are many old estates which were built at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. These estates were from people who lived and worked in Amsterdam and came here in the countryside to stay for the weekend and for hunting for example…

These estates have names spelled in old Dutch which reflected either the family name of the owner or what the estate was used for… so often names related to hunting and leisure time… so when I created the Vrystaete label I took a name which is related to the estates here and which reflects the free state of mind with which the label is done…

Anyway… here is one Diamantener Oberhof song…

And here is one song by Brunnen…

Both tracks are from the upcoming albums… more information and sound previews can be found here…