2019: Time Goes By Too Fast

(photo by Roger NBH)

This was the year of doing collaborative works with other people. It seemed maybe more than ever, but of course, I don’t keep statistics. It saw the release of the first album by The Stone Tapes, the ‘supergroup’ (haha) with Edward Ka-spel, Phil Knight, dAS and Ninah Pixie and myself, which we recorded in 2018 and now released by Attenuation Circuit. In 2020 there will be more recordings by us.

On the off-chance that Steven Wilson wasn’t occupied with something else, I asked him if we could do a one-minute song for the Casio compilation that I am working on, and will have pieces by most of my various pseudonyms. He made five, and that was the start of an extensive back and forth emailing of sounds, pieces and it resulted in a 3CD, ‘VL Tones’.

There is collaborative work also next year by Kozo Inada (my piece is completed) and by Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson & BJ Nilsen. Jos Smolders and I re-launched our work as WaSm. Tapeworm will release the work I recorded with Richard Francis a long time ago; I am very happy that will finally be released by this respectable house. With Steffan de Turck I may start a new thing called Hyster.

It was good to see I am still a part of De Fabriek and that they are now more visible on the internet!

The picture you see above is Martijn Comes and me in concert on September 14th in Amsterdam. Of course it a picture by my homey Roger NBH. It was a benefit evening for Moving Furniture Records and in my humble opinion one of the best concerts I ever did in my life. period. Martijn and I worked on an album, which Moving Furniture will release shortly, and we did some preparation for this duo concert, but still, it was largely improvised. It will be available as a bonus CDR with the official album.

I also played a concert with Lilia Scheerder in Extrapool which went well, and maybe repeated in 2020 should changes come up.

It was a good but not a great year for concerts. Highlights were (also) the concert I played in Rotterdam on the church organ there, THU20 afternoon in Rotterdam and an evening with Ezdanitoff in Berlin. Sadly Tech Riders didn’t tour this year and only played one concert (which could have gone a bit better).

I finally went out, fired up by the enthusiasm of Wouter Jaspers, and re-published my Staalplaat book. It was well-received and I finally made some money on it. From all the work of writing, editing and promoting the first edition, I didn’t make a single euro. It also made me decide to publish some more books; next year I will publish a 500+ page collection of all the Vital fanzines from 1986-1996 (no, not the Vital Weekly thing, before that) and a collection of stuff I wrote over the years not being reviews,

By far the saddest thing was my dear friend Jolanda taking her life. She played for all the 11 years I worked for Staalplaat a vital part in that story by being obnoxious, sexy, lovely, friendly and probably the most human person around. After that, we stayed in contact and I still can’t believe she’s gone. If anything, it helped me decide to publish my book again. No comfort really.

In 2020 I will start a new musical project, Ruisch. “The end of new music” and “drum music for the third decade of the third millennium”.

Since six months I have a pass for the cinema and saw more films in the cinema than ever before in my entire life, or so it seems. My top 4 for this year are ‘Monos’, ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’, ‘Joker’ and ‘Motherless Brooklyn’. On TV (should I have one) I thought ‘Chernobyl’ was the best series in a long time (well, there is good stuff around anyway), and I enjoyed ‘Veep’ (having watched it for the first time, the entire thing) and ‘The Man In The High Castle’. ‘Doctor Who’ was great too. I had more hopes for ‘This Time With Alan Partridge’, but upon re-watching, I got more what kind of humour they were after.

I am sure I saw some great concerts, but the only I seem to remember is Drekka in Extrapool. I don’t go out much these days, I guess.

Same goes for books; read a lot though.

This is some of the stuff I enjoyed hearing this year

Reinhold Friedl – Music For Piano,… Spring/Flower/Cracker/Stream (LP by Holotype Editions)

Jon Heilbron – Pieces For Chord Organs (CD by Intonema)

Hunter Complex – Open Sea (LP by Death Waltz Originals)

Idea Fire Company – The Island Of Taste (CD by Fuordämning Archiv)

Werner Durand – Schwingende Luftsäulen 2 (CD By Ants Records)

David Jackman – Herbstsonne (CD by Die Stadt)

Enrico Piva – Anticlima (5CD by Spazio Di Hausdorff)

Jacinthebox – Incomplete 1984/86 (LP by Supreme Tools Supply)

Philip Sanderson – On One Of Those Bends (LP by Seance Centre)

E.M.I.R.S. – Adem/Breath (Cdr, Private)

Orphax – Live Circles (CD By Moving Furniture Records)

Dan Armstrong – A Long Time Coming (CD by Reflection Records)

The Legendary Pink Dots – Angel In The Detail (CD by Metropolis)

Drekka – Beings Of Imberindus (CD by Somnimage)

:Zoviet*France: – Gris (LP by Vinyl On Demand)

Mono-Poly – Testlab (LP by Blowpipe)

Perfect Vacuum – I Must Not Think Bleak Thoughts (LP by Blowpipe)

Deneuve – Push Push Rock & Roll (12″ by Blowpipe)

Bass Communion – Dronework (2019 (CD by Headphone Dust)

Jim O’rourke – To Magnetize Money And Catch A Roving Eye (4CD by Sonoris)

O Yuki Conjugate – Sleepwalker (CD by Auf Abwegen)

Howard Stelzer – Anathematization Of The World Is Not An Adequate Response To The World  (Double Cdr by Chocolate Monk)

Hessel Veldman/Enno Velthuys – Boezem Ballet/In Ijle Lucht (7″ by Stroom TV)

Vanity Records 11 CD/6CD/2CD Re-Issues

Plus I enjoyed The Beat – Public Confidential very much. Yes, I do listen to pop music, apparently.

the 2019 releases list:

2019

[Modelbau]

SUNSPOT (c90, no label, 25 copies)

[Modelbau]

‘The Killing Ground’ on Homework Year 4 (download, Taalem)

[Quest]

(A) QUARTER (3″CDR, Taalem alm 130, edition of 32 in mini digipack; also in jewel case)

[Modelbau]

TRAVELERS (cassette, Park70 park 11, 50 copies)

[Howard Stelzer]

casio sounds by Frans de Waard on ‘Stop! Just Let Me Think’ on ANATHEMATIZATION OF THE WORLD IS NOT AN ADEQUATE RESPONSE TO THE WORLD (double CDR by Chocolate Monk choc 457)

[Modelbau]

ALL THINGS (cassette, Invisible City Records ICR 54, 50 copies)

[Bass Communion & Freiband]

VL TONES (3CD, Tonefloat TF 194, 1000 copies)

[The Stone Tapes]

REVOLUTIONS IN THE HEAD (CD, Attenuation Circuit ACU 1015, 300 copies)

[QST]

COLLECTING SPACE (CD, Carpe Sonum Novum XV, 200 copies)

[Modelbau]

NIGHTCRAWLERS (CD, Norwegianism Records Nor 022)

[Modelbau]

‘The Index’ on Music For A Few People Vol. 2 (cassette, Non-Interrupt)

[Quest]

WINTER’S SUN (CDR, Fuzzy Panda Recording Company fprc 19.2)

[Frans de Waard]

REMIXES VOL. 1 (CD, De Fabriek Records & Tapes)

[Modelbau]

THE WHOLE TRUTH (cassette, TT 129)

[Frans de Waard & Asmus Tietchens]

OORDEEL (CD, Auf Abwegen aatp64)

[Modelbau]

COSMIC TWINS (split cassette with Antoine Panache, Barreuh Records bar-casspl-007, 30 copies)

[Modelbau]

THE FEVER (CDR, Hologram Label 17, 50 copies)

[Modelbau]

MIRROR IMAGE (CDR, Hologram Label 16, 50 copies)

[Modelbau]

NIGHT CALL (cassette, Important Drone Records #04)

[Modelbau]

A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE (cassette, Regional Bears 15)

[QST]

untitled track on Changez Retravaille (3CD compilation, Ricerca Sonora RS7, 300 copies)

[Modelbau]

‘Terminal Beach’ on Akusmata (CD, Antenna Non Grata ANG CD 04)

[Modelbau]

‘Time Of Passage’ and ‘The Air Disaster’ on Music For A Few People (cassette, Non-Interrupt NI 07)

[Modelbau]

WAVELENGTH (Cloud Chamber cc17, edition of 30 copies)

[Freiband]

various sounds contributed to @C ‘Espaco, Pausa, Repeticao’ (cassette, Cronica Electronica 150-2019)

[Modelbau]

LONG DISTANCE CALL (Non-Interrupt NI 04)

[Modelbau]

KICK THE CAN (download, Stront Tapes)

[De Fabriek]

ARCHAIC (2CD, De Fabriek Records & Tapes fabprod 26)

[Modelbau]

FÜR JOLANDA (download, not on label)

[Idea Fire Company]

THE ISLAND OF TASTE (CD, Fördämning Arkiv F-arkiv 2, edition of 300 copies)

[Quest]

YESTERNIGHTS (CD, St.an.da 1909, edition of 100 copies)

[Modelbau]

THE INVADERS (cassette, Hemisphare Nokukyo HNK008)

[Modelbau]

THE LATENESS OF THE HOUR (cassette, Audio Visual Atmosphere AVA 64, edition of 55 copies)

the 2091 concerts

Modelbau

19-01-2019 Oude Kerk Charlois, Rotterdam

22-03-2019 De Perifeer, Deventer

05-04-2019 KM28, Berlin, Germany

06-09-2019 FJage I Hillevag, Stavanger, Norway

21-09-2019 Harmonic And Non-Adaptive Sounds, Goor

02-10-2019 Van Abbehuis, Eindhoven

Ezdanitoff

06-04-2019 Sari Sari, Berlin, Germany (concert)

THU20

23-06-2019 Worm, Rotterdam

Frans de Waard

08-09-2019 FJage I Hillevag, Stavanger, Norway

Tech Riders

07-09-2019 FJage I Hillevag, Stavanger, Norway

Frans de Waard & Lilia Scheerder

27-01-2019 Extrapool, Nijmegen

Frans de Waard & Martijn Comes

14-09-2019 De Ruimte, Amsterdam