ACR Last week

The Old & The New

Zebra headed to Brussels for two missions. The first was on friday night at The Public School. Kosten Koper organised a class about Martin Hannett. He compiled a film displaying various interesting angles about the late great producer. Then it was time for some live music. First I played 'One [Live] Aspect', using the 'In the Studio with Joy Division' as the source material, which went well, I think. Complete darkness made it not easy to see what I was doing, but perhaps that's part of the fun. After the break and more red wine, Zebra played their piece. We added a third part to what we already planned earlier and Roel and me think its a damn fine piece. Kosten Koper provided some light-show. First mission was succesful. The next day we walked all the way to the former Expo 58 site and looked at the Atomium. Nice building indeed. In the evening we walked to Plan K, a legendary place. Here Joy Division played the first time outside the UK, former home of Factory Benelux and Les Disques Du Crepuscule and god knows what else. On the programm was a Factory Night. Although we arrived quite late, we were still in time to catch the opening act, The Names (with a strings). The strings didn't add much, I think and it was more or less alright. The Wake followed. They were alright too, I guess, until some female keyboard player was added, and they looked and sounded like early New Order, but not as good. Back in the day I never heard Biting Tongues, who arrived too late in the 80s to catch my attention, but who were actually great. No wave funk music. Section 25 sounded more together than a year ago, but still the lyrics had to read off paper, which looked silly. Quite loud, heavy on the guitar. The main attraction, at least for Roel and me, was A Certain Ratio, who, despite some technical troubles, delivered an excellent set, highlighting their best songs: 'Do The Du', 'Shack Up', 'Flight', 'Knife Slits Water', 'Mind Made Up' and ending with an excellent 'Sir Fermir O Grido'. Our third companion Rincke has a small video of that which, once I have it, I'll put on youtube and here too.

Radio Beirut

While browsing around looking for something I came across the BeirutFM radio sessions, an Italian programm, which broadcasts some nice music, including, lo & behold, all MOLL releases. Check out this:

live streaming, monday h. 20:35


blog

MOLL page

Klankschap 1999-2005

Of course I knew yesterday that I would write again today, because I knew Sindre Bjerga and Jan-M Iversen, who played quite a nice set at Extrapool, were bringing a box of copies of my second (!) CD under my own name, 'Klankschap 1999-2005'. They hail from Stavanger and so is the label, :Zang who released this. Ok, I'll admit straight I fucked up. First of all 1999 is wrong, it should have been 2001 actually. I e-mailed back and forth with the :Zang guys about possible tracks, but I am pretty sure somewhere in the later mails I mentioned 2001. That's one. The second mistake is my own, it spells 'Werplaats #1' but in the finer print below, so you see it called 'Werkplaats #1', as should be. Otherwise, otherwise, I am very pleased with this. The six pieces are from that period in which I more and more started to work with field recordings (let's safely say from 1999, some of the sounds used) and had this idea for pieces with them. If a piece is called something like 'Wind' or 'Regen', it means nothing was done with it, but if it has the title 'Klankschap' its actually a collage of various bits. Later on I extended it with other titles. So on this CD, the opening and closing pieces are 'Werkplaats 1 and 2', based on sounds from various workshops Kapotte Muziek did over the years (since 1997), a bit similar to Roel's 'Workshop' piece on the split LP with me for Stichting Mixer. 'Klankschap #9' is a long, mostly soft piece of wind and sea sounds recorded in the small village of Veere, where my daughter Elise lives. Then there is the short piece 'Epitaph', which has sounds from John Watermann, for our unfinished collaboration, and that were later used for 'Epitaph For John'. Klankschap is a somewhat shorter studio version of a concert I did at JNR Record store in Tokyo, in 2001 for a very small audience. I always like that piece, but the recording I made over there wasn't great and perhaps a bit long. The first four pieces can very well be enjoyed as four pieces, but also as one I think. The fifth piece is 'Ramp', the Dutch word for 'Disaster', but of course a road thingy in English. In 2002 Kapotte Muziek toured the USA a bit with Jason Talbot and Howard Stelzer, in a small car and played a few times with the five of us, which we could 'Ramp' among ourselves. My piece here is an edit of various recordings we made that tour and originally everyone was going to do one, but I think in the end just Roel and me finished one. A more electronic piece at times, but also contact microphone stuff and field recordings, it fits well into this collection. It ends with 'Werkplaats #2', which puts you back to earth. Get a copy today! From me or from zang (www.zang.no). Thanks to Helge Olav, Pal Asle, Jan M and Sindre for this!

Martin

On December 12th at Plan K in Brussels there is a Factory night with A Certain Ratio, Section 25 and whole bunch more. See here The night before Kosten Koper organises a small event about Martin Hannett, my favourite producer. Since I released 'Martin - Seven [New] Aspects' in 2004 on Tib Prod he asked me to come and do something. Its unclear as yet wether I have to play the CD or do something new (which I hope for), but later that evening Zebra will perform their own take on the work of Hannett. Roel and me prepared a thing already a few weeks ago, which I think is pretty great. It'll be the first Zebra concert in two years. Since the 3"CDR on Tib Prod is sold out, I decided to re-issue it on My Own Little Label, ready today, just in time to give one to Jan-M Iversen of Tib Prod, who will play at Extrapool tonight. More information on the Brussels' class here

Around The Corner

Today I receive some copies of the latest issue of Gonzo Circus, with the 'luistertest' they did with me. A kind a like the invisible jukebox of The Wire, where people have to guess what is what and expand on that. The free CD comes with an exclusive eleven piece piece by Pick-up. The writer of the article Alex van der Hulst just send me the picture above, taken from Google view just around the corner where I live. Fucking hell! That's me and Elise. Big brother all around.

You Can't Put A Price (Prize?) On Beauty

New releases then, for every wallet on. First, the normal prized item of today is the great first 7" by The Tobacconists. One track Scott and me recorded while the first was still in Nijmegen, using samples of that great DRS. P, a personal favorite of mine. Meeuw did a great cover, re-doing our favorite smokes from Russia (see above). Press voice for this:

THE TOBACCONISTS - THE DARK SECRETS OF DOCTOR PERATI / PROMETHEUS (7" by Plinkity Plonk)
The Tobacconists are no other than Frans de Waard (some of you may have heard of him) and Scott Foust (some of you may have heard of him as well), both of them notorious smokers and versatile musicians. The first quality is aptly expressed in the design based on Russia's cheapest pack of smokes, Belamor Kanal: very nice indeed. The last quality is expressed aptly as well on this 7". The side called 'The dark secrets of doctor Perati' is a kind of drony piece with long stretched synth sounds, but layered in that are all kinds of acoustic elements, varying from squeaking doors (?) to rhythmic pulses and with a great ending! The other side, 'Prometheus', sounds more open and dynamic, almost like a radioplay. The combination of both sides works well and offers a good impression of what
these two smokers can achieve. Certainly just as good as their 3"! (MG)

Available from info@kormplastics.nl

A bit more expensive and a bit more limited is the LP by Wander on Beam End of which this is the official press release:

WANDER – WANDER
Beam Ends records is proud to announce the release of the latest release by Wander (Frans de Waard and Freek Kinkelaar of Beequeen). Like all previous albums, and, indeed, all tracks by Wander this is entitled WANDER.
We have done our best to make this new Wander album a special one. WANDER consists of the following: a clear vinyl (so NOT a Peter King/Lathe cut) hand-pressed album, which plays from the label to the rim (instead of the other way around), presented in back paper insert with Wander "band" shirt in a hand-made blue boxset (made by the same company that produced the boxes for Raymond Dijkstra and the recent Flawed Existence box by Nurse With Wound). Of this set only 10 (ten) copies were produced, signed and numbered by the makers.
The album features two tracks of beautiful drone ambience.
The price of this set is 100 Euros, excluding shipping to your location. Even though we realize this is a lot of money, we do feel this is worth the package. With 2 copies in our archives, this leaves 8 copies for sale. This is surely the most luxurious and most limited release by Beam Ends records so far.
You can order your copy via info@beequeen.nl

3 copies are sold already.



But if you have no money, then point your browser here
and get a free download from the Freiband concert from last thursday.

A Peter Zincken has just released a 3CDR set which is no doubt the best anthology of current Dutch noise, called Nedernoise. Kapotte Muziek has a track on there too...