Reinier Van Houdt
Mouths Without A Head
*200 copies limited edition* Music composed in resonance with Orlando di Lasso’s ‘Prophetiae Sibyllarum’ (ca 1555-60). The Sibylline Prophecies are a 16th century collection of vocal motets that could be considered prophetic, because they open up the music of its time to chromaticism beyond diatonality, posing new challenges to tuning. On the other hand, the sung text is an unambiguous appropriation of ancient Greek Sibylline oracles, claiming these predicted the coming of Christ —a fictional re…
Circles, Reeds, and Memories
This release brings together three Dutch composers/performers, Reinier van Houdt, Germaine Sijstermans, and Koen Nutters, who have each released their own work on elsewhere music in recent years. Nutters, who has collaborated in the past with both van Houdt (Cornelius Cardew project) and Sijstermans (DNK Ensemble, The Names), conceived the idea of a trio performance with the two musicians, which later developed into this three-way collaborative project.
Last December the trio played a concert at…
Lieues D'Ombres
Swiss composer Jürg Frey and Dutch pianist/composer Reinier van Houdt are reunited on this triple CD, 'lieues d'ombres', after their successful collaboration on 'l'air, l'instant - deux pianos' (elsewhere 014), during which the two built a close rapport.
'lieues d'ombres' contains seven of Frey’s solo piano works, written from 1984 – 2018, including one previously unreleased work, ‘Three Piano Pieces’. All seven pieces were recorded by Micha de Kanter at The Muziekcentrum van de Omroep (MCO) in …
untitled #400
*In process of stocking* Spaniard Francisco López is one of the most recognised sound artists on the international scene: in the span of four decades of activity, he has developed an extremely personal sound universe, based on a deep listening of the world. He created hundreds of sound installations and performances in major museums, galleries and international festivals. Reinier Van Houdt, Dutch pianist and composer, has built himself an unusual repertoire that is always the result from persona…
drift nowhere past / the adventure of sleep
Rotterdam-based composer/pianist Reinier van Houdt created six pieces from March 22 to August 22, 2020 for a monthly 'quarantine' series of the online festival AMPLIFY 2020: quarantine, commissioned by Jon Abbey. Each of the six pieces on 'drift nowhere past' was recorded on the 22nd of each month (#18, #75, #128, #155, #194, #211). "I've made these pieces from what I played, listened to, recorded, played back, read, watched, heard, or imagined, each during one specific day in the quarantine of …
Pas Maar Op Want Deze Tas Is Van Zorro
**2022 stock** In their own contemporary version of ’L’ Histoire du Soldat’, Plan Kruutntoone and Reinier van Houdt roam the rough edges of holes in plaster, at home in a dangerous world. Sleeping in the flag, accepting their free daily buns. Gratefully learning from Igor S. and Sonic Y. while upholding the red flower. Together with Garshin they inspect the ward. And with Rosa; dear and beautiful retarded alto. And Chleb; singer with the wooden voice. And Zorro cares for all. Esc.rec. releases '…
L'Air, L'Instant - Deux Pianos
Jürg Frey’s unique compositional approach places him at the cutting edge of contemporary classical music. Since the late 90's, Frey started to work with 'lists' as a basis of his compositions, sometimes words, sometimes chords, from which he developed and organized musical materials. In recent years, Frey's focus on 'lists' has extended more toward the connections of items with each other, forming melodies.Frey wrote two compositions for two pianos in 2017-2019: Entre les deux l'instant (2017/20…
Igitur Carbon Copies
**180 grams clear vinyl** “A man wakes up in the middle of the night. Is there something there? Or has something disappeared? Outside are clouded constellations of stars, inside the radio plays idle sounds from beyond and the phone is dead. It seems as if something had been accompanying him already all the time, hiding in the corner of his eye, stealing his identity by being a double. Trying to escape this mirror phantom he leaves the room. Outside on the stairs he happens upon more reflections,…
MMXX-04
The fourth instalment of the MMXX series comes from the dutch pianist Reinier Van Houdt, whose work pursues an escape from conventional notations of sound, timing, space, physicality, memory, noise, environment, and the points where interpretation, experience and improvisation touch.In addition to a growing body of solo and collaborative compositions of his own, for more than 20 years Van Houdt has been a crucial voice in the landscape in contemporary avant-garde and experimental music, performi…
Paths of the Errant Gaze
Reinier Van Houdt performed as a classical trained pianist premieres of works by Robert Ashley, Charlemagne Palestine and many others. He worked with composers as John Cage or Luc Ferrari and plays in Current 93, recently releasing an album with contributions by Nick Cave, John Zorn and Antony Hegarty. Paths of the Errant Gaze taps into the artists obsession with recording everyday objects, situations and moments. The act of recording seems to create a third ear, a little loophole in time throug…
Lettres et Replis
**500 copies** This album contains six pieces written by French composer / artist Bruno Duplant, all composed and realized by Dutch pianist / composer Reinier van Houdt. Duplant's scores Lettres (pour Reinier van Houdt) (2017) are three letter-form scores personally addressed to van Houdt containing letter sequences distributed across the page. Trois replis d'incertitude (2018) are also three letter-form scores but with the notion of 'repli' (meaning 'fold' in a Deleuzian postmodern baroque sens…
Dead Beats
Dead Beats: A new composition by American avant-garde composer Alvin Curran for Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt, brought together with the first ever recording of Inner Cities No 9 '9-11-01' The piano has always been at the core of Alvin Curran's oeuvre. Granted, you'd expect a statement like that from the liner notes to a collection of his piano pieces. In this case, however, he's said so himself, in a candid interview with sound artist Andrew Liles: "It’s the focal point and kind of a totem fo…
Shades of Eternal Night
Field Recordings from Syros, Greece and Southern California in 2015 and 2017. Piano performed by Reinier van Houdt, recorded in The Wild Beast, CalArts, June 2015Inside image by Michael Pisaro / Thanks to Keith Rowe.The sounds come and go against a backdrop of silence and stillness; the silences aren’t long but there’s a definite sense of a canvas only partially filled. Frequently, sounds are allowed to reverberate and decay into nothingness. It’s perhaps this quality that most communicates a se…
The Earth and the Sky
Erstwhile is proud to announce the first release on the new ErstClass imprint, an epic collection of Michael Pisaro's work for piano from 1994-2016, 11 pieces totalling 223 minutes. The pieces are performed by the brilliant Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt (Current 93, Walter Marchetti, Robert Ashley, etc.) with close oversight by Pisaro as well as his own musical input at times. The gorgeous 8-panel digipak was designed by Yuko Zama (also the lead producer), and the 8 page booklet features liner…