The past few posts have been about digital music, and while I like to serve everybody what they want, I do like physical releases perhaps a little more. This week, by curious twist of fate I guess, I got three new releases which involve my music, small and large. First there is a 3″ CDR by Bastet, in which five people remix Unter Den Linden. I am pretty sure I did my piece already in 2001 and it was one of the first pieces of laptop music I ever did. Stephan Mathieu liked this one. It was also released on the Freiband cassette on Beam End, in 2011, because frankly I thought this would not never appear. The others on this 3″ CDR compilation are Nouvelles Lectures Cosmopolites, Monolith, Column One and P.A.L. Heavy stuff!

Then I got copies of ‘Pink Pearl’, a CD which I recorded with Howard Stelzer in 2011 and 2012. As source material we used everything that we done since we started to work together, which must have been 1996, when we first traded rough musical sounds to be melted into new music. But unlike some others in this particular branch, I have met Howie a couple of times – I would like to say on 5 occasions but I am afraid I will use the wrong number – when he was in Europe or I in the USA and we have played together on a number of live and studio collaborations. I know, its what musicians always say, but this might be our best work together. The source material is old stuff from cassettes, previous collaborations, live recordings and lots of digital processing on my part. We will not disclose who did which track

And then there is Freiband’s ‘Mutatis Mobilis’. When I did a Freiband piece on the Korm 25th Anniversary cassette it had some stuff on side A, and some on side B, so that you could use the tape as a 4 track tape and further treat this stuff. Z’EV send me a piece, which I think I may have lost (but I don’t dare to tell him) and Mirko Uhlig did a long one, which Attenuation Circuit released as a cassette and CDR. I used that cassette in my four track recorder to play it back and use that for some new music, which is again something people could use as a four track. Either by using the cassette version as a four track or using free software to play both pieces at the same time. A never ending thing I guess.

Yesterday Wieman rehearsed for their concert ‘Play Goem’ at the end of this month and it sounds great. The Tobacconists have 2 LPs ready (mixed and mastered) for release, and the new Beequeen is 99% ready – all of which should make excellent releases. Beequeen is easily the most commercial music I was ever involved in. Fucking hell, this should break big time!

Two albums with collections of historical pieces! One is Klankschap #1, #3, #6 and #8, with four long pieces of field recordings music, and the other is Klankschap & Other Pieces. Full tracklist is Capuciro, Requiem Pour Un Homme Seul, Waving Back, Stilte, A Soundguide To Knust, Klankschap #4, Klankschap #7, Klankschap #5, Klankschap #10, Profieldeel Zeven, For Phil, Whistling, Material and Broken Balloon, spanning pieces from 1994 to 2013. Both on bandcamp!

about my role as the yellow pages of the underground. I do write a lot of reviews, hence I do ‘know’ lots of musicians and labels, and as I sometimes play out music live I might know a few places to perform music. All duly noted in Vital Weekly. Yet, on an almost daily basis I receive requests from musicians for labels, contact persons at labels (even those with whom I am no longer connected for about 10 years), or that super handy list of venues to perform. I love you all, I wish you to do well, but the answer to your question is simply ‘no, I can’t help you’. A) because I simply not well organized, so I don’t have a fine word document with the requested information and b) because this is made to measure work, like which label would suit you best, which venue, what money would be involved. This also extends to requests such as ‘write me a support letter for my grant’, or ‘hey why does Extrapool not respond to my e-mail (or anyone else)’, ‘will you be my support act if I play in Extrapool’ etc. To put it bluntly: I am not interested in doing free work for anyone, other then myself and the ones I seek out myself. I don’t have the time to listen your demo and think of a list of a least 10 willing labels to release it. Or to book your tour. Or to release it myself. I think, through my work for Vital Weekly, my own music, my own label (when you hand in a request for advise, think about this: when was the last time you bought a release of my label?) and some work which I do, but don’t take public credit for (if you know what that is, fine. If not, just ignore), I think I serve the underground with all my heart already. Save those Vital Weeklies, make an effort of reading it (as far as is possible), seek out those labels and venues yourself and build your own word document with relevant info. And to those I do help, which I actually also do, I usually offer it, not asked. Or simply find me hanging at a bar and buy me beer. I’ll talk your socks off, and you make the notes.
This extends everyone, no matter if we never met, or met a lot of times, or even if I released your work. It’s nothing personal, but please understand my position. I don’t want a daily business running errants for everyone who asks.

(this already appeared on facebook in March 2013, but slightly changed here)

This is the first one

A while ago I wrote about an interesting tape release in vital weekly:

ENANTIOBIOSIS 1 (cassette by Bob Heaven’s Tapes)
And then finally a cassette that idea-wise is right up my alley: four bands have provided a piece of music that is copied to this tape so that the adventurous musician can stick it into his four track machine and do his own mix. So we have one channel on side A for Drekka, the other channel for Lather, and we reverse the tape and have Charnel House on the left channel and Kyle Willey on the right channel (estimated. I couldn’t decipher the cover properly). Not exactly something you stick on and listen, but rather something you can freely play around with. Long form drone like sounds with crude lo-fi sampling. Maybe a bit rough? Who cares? Where can we send our mixes, I wondered? (oh, and here’s a tip for those who don’t have a four track machine: record the entire cassette to your computer. Make two files, one per side of the cassette. But ‘side B’ in reverse mode, and import both into your favorite multi track program and start mixing)

A few days after I wrote this I went into my studio where I have 2 old four track cassette players, one normal speed (who actually belonged to Roel Meelkop) and a double speed one. Connected that to a mixer and some sound effects, and played around for some time, recording everything, went home and chopped up the entire 90 or so minutes into nine separate pieces with a total playing time of some 37 minutes and uploaded it to the guy who send me the thing. It’s been available as a download for some time, but now the CDR is available as part of the Orphanology series, under the letter ‘W’ of Frans de Waard. 23 copies have been made!