Dirk Serries
Aliases: Fear Falls Burning, Vidna Obmana
Member of: SETT
Innocent as Virgin Wood
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "In its essence, free improvisation is a leap into the unknown. A question mark. And while it is possible to reproduce previously used ideas, in its purest sense it takes balls to accept its challenges, for the simple fact that the performer is out there alone, even when playing with others. Free Improvisation is being naked on a stage. The unavailability of form and reassurance about what is happening next cannot be underestimated. In improvised music, the musician is…
Quartet & Quintet - Double Vortex
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "Understated, tightly controlled, minimalist music always gets the better deal. There is something mature and cultured about an artist who distills and reaches for the essence instead of provoking and dabbling in exuberance, volume and a cluster of diverging ideas. In a world that is nearly driven to total chaos by a maddening abundance of impulses, Goethe’s worn out adage - that it is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself - has become the ultimate compl…
I
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "(...) Lisle, Serries and Webster reconvened again in October 2015 for another studio recording at the same studio in London, now calling themselves the Kodian Trio. This trio is supposed to be a working group and is already touring the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.The interplay on their debut release is much more energetic and experimental than the one explored on Apparitions. Serries and Webster alternate the leading roles, both sounding aggressive and assertiv…
Apparitions
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "Apparitions, unlike the volatile spirit of Live at Café OTO, stresses a different approach for this set of four collaborative free improvisations. Here the four musicians explore a kind of a slow-cooking interplay, a calm and conversational one. Apparitions begins and ends with the minimalist I and IV, where all restrain their playing to low whispers, skeletal guitar lines and brushing of the cymbals, building the tension tension patiently and methodically until reach…
Cinépalace
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "Dirk Serries and his wife, double bass player Martina Verhoeven, meet British tenor sax player Colin Webster, who also participated in the Dead Neanderthals’ Endless Voids, for a live improvisation, recorded at the DIY club Cinépalace in Kortrijk, Belgium in May 2015. A month earlier Serries performed with Webster in a quartet that was recorded as Live at Cafe Oto, and released on Webster’s Raw Tonk label. This recording, titled after the club name, highlights the hig…
Cult Exposure
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "This free improvised sax-electric guitar duo has nothing to do with previous duos of similar instrumentalists. The meeting between the muscular Brötzmann-ian sax wails of American, Amsterdam-based sax player John Dikeman, known from the free jazz bands Cactus Truck and Universal Indians, and the reserved, serene playing of the effects-laden guitar of Dirk Serries forced the two to transcend any possible comfort zone. On the first piece the two still struggle to find …
The Transcending Quest
**100 copies** 25th anniversary reprint on 10" golden vinyl of the 3" MiniCD originally released by Amplexus in 1994. Personally remastered in 2019 by Dirk Serries, this tiny Tribal Ambient jewel is finally available again as an ultra limited vinyl edition. The Transcending Quest perfectly represent the sound of Vidna Obmana, and in its 20 minutes it concentrates all the atmospheres and moods that were later developed on a fundamental album like The River of Appearance or on his nearly-mythical …
The Devastation Chant
**100 copies** Another rare item originally published on a single-sided lathe cut record (8 copies only!) returns to the light. Dirk Serries' 'The Devastation Chant' was part of the "8+8" series released by 13 back in 2015, and since then has become quite a rarity. This time it is re-released as a limited edition 10" vinyl record coming in a deluxe gatefold sleeve, with the flipside offering an unreleased piece culled from the same sessions. As in the best Serries / Vidna Obmana / Fear Falls Bur…
The Ultimated Sign Of Burning Death
His legendary first tape finally reissued / Vidna Obmana (stylized vidnaObmana on many album covers) is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name Vidna Obmana, a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serries because he felt it accurately described the music. Serries created music under the Vidna Obmana pseudonym from 1984 until 2007, when he official retired the name. Vidna Obmana's music has often been described a…
No Sacrifice LP
Vidna Obmana is a pseudonym used by Belgian artist Dirk Serries. He has been a significant name in the ambient scene for more than two decades, releasing over more than 50 solo albums and numerous collaborations. But apart from his main ambient colleagues, Vidna Obmana originates from the industrial cassette network scene in early eighties, releasing several tapes on his own label and on others. No Sacrifice Lp get tracks from infamous tape released in 1985 on Zeal SS No sacrifice for w…
1984-86 testament of tape
1984-1986 Testament Of Tape captures vidnaObmana in its most experimental phase during the obscure tape period, searching for its own musical voice, Dirk Serries (well-known sound-artist, especially known for his Fear Falls Burning-Releases) is moving on this Box-Set through various styles. From utterly relentless noise music to rhythmical industrial outbursts. This 3LP set features unreleased and extremely rare tracks from a personal friend's private collection (music that was recorded exclusiv…
I\'m One Of Those Monsters Numb With Grace
James Brown had the nick-name ‘the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business’. Dirk Serries from Belgium must be one of the hardest working men of the ambient music scene. From the mid 80’s on he filled dozens of albums with atmospheric music under the name of Vidna Obmana. In 2005 he started a new project, Fear Falls Burning, and the number of releases already cannot be counted one one hand. The concept of Fear Falls Burning is a clear: a single man performs real-time on the electric guitar, which s…
We Slowly Lift Ourselves From Dust
This is a set of 28 minutes of new music by Fear Falls Burning for the Italian A Silent Place label. Per side Fear Falls Burning explores, as the title would suggest, the darker and nihilistic regions of his drone music. Minimal repetitive motives which slowly evolve and expand over the 14 minutes per side into 2 unsettling harmonies of minor and solitude. All performed live and recorded directly onto hard disc, there's no editing involved in order to maintain the spontaneous interaction of the …
The rainbow mirrors a burning heart
Fear Falls Burning - With all the power, noise, aggression and subtlety that comes from a single man performing real-time on the electric guitar through a maze of pedal effects, notes and chords shifting and multiplying over time into dense and trance-inducing walls of sound. Fear Falls Burning succeeds in uncovering a new language that stretches time and brings the listener to the edge multiple times, entrancing with the repetitive yet pure sonic presence of the electric guitar. Fear Falls Burn…