Music from Belgium

Three fantastic electonic compositions produced at Brussels' Studio De Recherches Et De Structuration Électroniques Auditives between 1967 and 1971, released on DGG's famed "Avantgarde" contemporary/electronic music series in 1971.

A double 7-inch brings together four sonic meditations of Aymeric de Tapol in all its amateur spiritualism. As his third release with Ångstrom Records, it acts as a strange mirror that bends the sense of what drone & continuous music might be. Each track opens an alternate door that invites us toward the experimental ephemeralism of Aymeric de Tapol’s idiosyncratic reveries.

Nachleben is a limited-edition cassette release by Italian pianist and composer Giovanni Di Domenico, issued by Dasa Tapes, a Greek label specializing in experimental music. The album features two long-form tracks: "Parts I & II" (19:34) and "Part III" (18:06), showcasing Di Domenico's signature minimalist piano style marked by repetition, subtle nuance, and contemplative atmospheres.​ Di Domenico's work on Nachleben embodies his personal approach to contemporary minimalism, emphasizing concentr…

Venice, 1984. Teatro Carlo Goldoni. Jan Fabre's legendary play The Power of Theatrical Madness premieres - and with it, a defining document of Pop Minimalism. This primarily European phenomenon - rooted in first-generation British minimalists Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman - took the tunefulness of Reich and Glass and gave it a pop base rather than jazz/African or western classical foundations. Mertens wrote the first full-length study of the genre, American Minimal Music (1983), before becoming…

Carrier’s debut album features eight elegantly rude arrangements that dance in negative space between Photek’s frictional syncopations, Rhythm & Sound’s dubwise minimalism and Torsten Pröfrock’s fractured dynamics, bolstered on two tracks by contributions from Voice Actor & Memotone, summoning a noirish, jazzier frisson to his signature metrics and temporalities.

In the ever-expanding universe of ambient and minimal electronic music archaeology, certain discoveries feel more significant than others - those rare moments when a previously overlooked recording emerges to fill gaps we didn't even know existed in our understanding of the genre's evolution. Stroom's reissue of Milan W's Leave Another Day represents precisely such a revelation, offering contemporary listeners access to a work that exemplifies the sophisticated minimalism that flourished in expe…

*25 copies limited edition* The second release on Many Chants Records is a solo EP, Guitar (For Loren), dedicated to Loren Connors. It was recorded in April 2025 on 2 guitars after playing/recording taishogoto for two years non-stop. It’s my personal take on the idiom of Loren’s music. I first came in touch with his music in the nineties through his connection with Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth. Our first encounter came in 2017 when I visited Loren at his appartment for a documentary I proposed…

Belgium’s avant-rock legends explore their prehistory in a special archival project. Retrieved from long-forgotten reel-to-reel tapes and cassettes, this collection of previously-unreleased tracks unveils some of the meanders which eventually led to the inception of Aksak Maboul in 1977. These 17 tracks and 80 minutes of music will take us for a stroll through moments of free rock, improv, quasi-kraut, modular & ambient electronics, and various experiments. Out on November 21 on digital, limited…

Hyperentasis is a double LP celebrating the unique connection between legendary saxophonist Akira Sakata and the city of Thessaloniki. Home to Defkaz Records and the birthplace of the Damianidis brothers, Thessaloniki has welcomed Sakata countless times. This release captures two of his landmark performances as a bandleader in the city. The first LP features the group Entasis with Giovanni Di Domenico (upright piano), Giotis Damianidis (electric guitar), Petros Damianidis (double bass), and Alek…

*100 copies limited edition* “'Wonderful Brutalism' is an epic, and at times intense slice of improvisation - drums and taishogoto build into an unrelenting stampede with moments of gentle cinematic soundscape. Improvisation at its most dynamic and inspiring.” - Michael Sill Belgium musicians Jef Mertens and Dirk Wachtelaer have both been active in the field of experimental music since the 1990s—Dirk as a drummer and Jef as a documentary filmmaker. It wasn’t until 2023 that they met for the firs…

Off The Record (faitiche 39), the new album by French collagist Roméo Poirier, is an amusing romp through the discarded history of recording studios. It contains fourteen miniatures based on accidental recordings of studio talk, revealing things that were never meant for the public: we hear instructions from studio staff, scraps of talk between musicians, or just microphones being adjusted, as well as false notes, false starts: everyone stops. Start again: 1, 2, 3, 4! Poirier’s approach recalls …

Original first edition on FMP of the 1975 album by a quartet of improvisation giants, including FMP catalogue.

Original first edition on FMP of the 1975 album by a trio of improvisation giants, including FMP catalogue.

Three pioneers of contemporary minimal electronic music converge on this remarkable collaborative EP, bridging the austere aesthetics of Finnish electronic minimalism with the ambient experimentalism of a new generation. Released via the legendary Sähkö Recordings' Puu sublabel, this tripartite exploration represents a masterful synthesis of post-minimalist sensibilities and environmental sound design.

Giovanni Di Domenico as a master of his instruments produces bulky sound rugged and dark atmospheres but also plainly beautiful through stark contrasts. Improvisation is therefore more as a state than an outline or shape, the timbre is the actual carrier of the form, drone is the crucial element. Edge Runner is sophisticated, refined even, balanced despite its obvious unwillingness to compromise, carefully crafted regardless of the mad surface structure. Noema consists of a live recording of an …

*100 copies limited edition* Belgian musician and filmmaker Jef Mertens has been an active force in the experimental music and film scene for nearly two decades. Known for his documentaries on artists like Sonic Youth and Borbetomagus, as well as his work with the now-defunct Dadaist Tapes label, Mertens continues to push the boundaries of sound exploration. His previous solo works include NO MATHEMATICS, released on KRAAK/Feeding Tube Records.With Orchid Alto, Mertens dedicates himself to the t…

Debut album by Belgian chamber rock band Aksak Mabul, led by Marc Orlandel, released in 1977. A mysterious fusion of acoustic instruments and electronics, akin to Erik Satie, ZNR and others. A masterpiece that will now go down in history as a chamber classic. Paper jacket, SHM-CD, latest remastering, 3 bonus tracks!

A pinnacle of the Rock In Opposition movement. Second and final album from Belgian avant-rock pioneers Aksak Maboul, recorded with ex-Henry Cow members Fred Frith and Chris Cutler. More intense and experimental than their playful 1977 debut Onze Danses Pour Combattre la Migraine, yet no less unpredictable. Reached #3 in NME's top ten European albums of 1980, after Yello and The Nits, before Steve Reich and Faust. Marc Hollander founded Crammed Discs specifically to release this record - the labe…

*2025 stock* Latest Aymeric de Tapol's output on La République des Granges.

“I did this piano/Rhodes recording, played live, without overdubs. I believe your approach to sound could match very well these tracks….” That’s how Giovanni Di Domenico’s collaboration with Rutger Zuydervelt started, though the first seeds were planted when the duo did a short live improv together in 2019, and Giovanni joining Hydra Ensemble on stage in 2022. Painting a Picture / Picture a painting is -as the title suggest- an album of two long-form pieces, swapping the working method for each …