Music from Netherlands

Two visionary maestros, Pierre Bastien and Michel Banabila, unite in their first collaborative album, Baba Soirée. The veterans of electronic music bring their unique expertise to the table, resulting in a captivating fusion of experimental styles. Bastien’s mechanical loops and fantastic instrumental setups merge seamlessly with Banabila's sound design and impeccable skills of sampling collages. It's not a dance party, nor is it an avant-garde intervention. It's a soirée: a cultivated evening o…

This album wouldn’t exist without clarinetist Gareth Davis, with whom I’ve collaborated several times. When I asked him to participate on my + album, he was working with Monika Bugajny. She got wind of my project and asked if she could join. I agreed and reworked her beautiful clarinet recording into a ghostly one-minute piece. Apparently my concoction was convincing enough for Monika to propose another, more elaborate collaboration. Her suggestion was to use the same working method again, but t…

Edition of 100 copies In 2012 Frans de Waard started yet another new music project, Modelbau. It took another two years before he really started, but he has since then released a long string of releases, many of which are on very limited cassettes. Over the intervening ten years, he played various European concerts and collaborated with musicians such as Orphax, MvK, and Scanner. Meeuw designed the original logo, which graced almost all of the releases, giving it a distinct look. Meeuw also crea…

"In the 1970s, serious music lovers had a reel-to-reel tape deck. My father certainly loved music and had one to tape classical music off the radio. I recorded my first musical experiments with this machine, fascinated as I was by slowing down the speed so my pieces last longer. Later on, I had some more experience, and my father turned to playing CDs, so the reel-to-reel machine has used a lot less, and I was allowed to drag it upstairs, and I borrowed one from the likewise serious Phillips emp…

This bundle includes the following two LPs and a 7" recently re-issued by Dead Mind Records:Enno Velthuys "Ontmoeting" (LP, 1982)Enno Velthuys "Landscapes in Thin Air" (LP + 7", 1985)Enno Velthuys "Ontmoeting" (LP, 1982)* 400 copies on black vinyl. Comes with a download card * Ontmoeting (Encounter) from 1982 marks the beginning of the published audio works of Enno Velthuys. When Rob Smit of Kubus Kassettes first visited Enno to discuss the possibilities of releasing a cassette, he was open to t…

This bundle includes the following three LPs and a 7" recently re-issued by Dead Mind Records:Enno Velthuys "Ontmoeting" (LP, 1982)Enno Velthuys "Landscapes in Thin Air" (LP + 7", 1985)Enno Velthuys "Different Places" (LP, 1987)Enno Velthuys "Ontmoeting" (LP, 1982)* 400 copies on black vinyl. Comes with a download card * Ontmoeting (Encounter) from 1982 marks the beginning of the published audio works of Enno Velthuys. When Rob Smit of Kubus Kassettes first visited Enno to discuss the possibilit…

* 500 copies on black vinyl. The 7"s comes with a wraparound sleeve. Includes download card * Landscapes In Thin Air is Enno Velthuys’s third album and was initially released by Kubus Kassettes in 1985. When Rob Smit decided to stop his label activities shortly after publishing this cassette, Hessel Veldman published a second edition on his label Exart. Compared to his second album, Glimpse of Light, it has a stronger presence of rhythm and a more melodic use of synths. These 10 cinematic sketch…

* 400 copies on black vinyl. Comes with a download card * Ontmoeting (Encounter) from 1982 marks the beginning of the published audio works of Enno Velthuys. When Rob Smit of Kubus Kassettes first visited Enno to discuss the possibilities of releasing a cassette, he was open to the idea and gave Smit access to his tape archive of recorded tracks to cherry pick his favorite pieces. Initially Enno felt the selection didn’t do justice to his broader musical spectrum, that also included more rhythm …

* 200 copies limited edition, green vinyl, includes a one-sided insert + a hand numbered envelope containing four additional prints * Continuing the reissue campaign of legendary synthesizer artist Enno Velthuys, we are proud to offer the Different Places LP. The original tape from 1987 was the second tape Enno produced for Exart and it was his last work before he disappeared into obscurity. By this time, he became disillusioned by the cassette network and his mental condition sadly deteriorated…

*2023 stock* "Hello, hope you’re doing well. I just started a little project, and I’d like to invite you to participate. Not to worry, it won’t take up too much of your time. I’m asking drummers/percussionists to record a few short fills or phrases. It can be recorded by simple means; a hand-held recorder or even a phone will do just fine. These gathered recordings will be used as the ‘Lego bricks’ to build a series of short rhythmical collages with. It would be fantastic if you’d like to join t…

*2023 stock. In process of stocking* After 'As Much As It Is Worth' and 'Engel', Marta & Kim asked me to compose the music for yet another dance/circus performance, 'Our Arms Grew Together'. This release presents an edited version of that score, tailored to the album format. The starting point of the 'Our Arms…' soundtrack was a series of home recordings that Marta and Kim made on my request. As the performance deals with their (romantic) relationship, it made sense to incorporate their daily li…

The plan for + arose from being a young parent, and dealing with the combination of working on music at the same time. Focusing on long-form music proofed challenging. So I came up with the idea to work on super short tracks that each could be made within a short span of time, and to do this with ‘a few’ collaborators. This concept worked out brilliantly (especially because of the enthousiastic responses from the artists I invited to join), and in no time the project grew a lot bigger than antic…

After last year’s Black Clouds Above The Bows, Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the second entry of their trilogy for Important Records, which is dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe. For this album the artists incorporated the sound of a dying organ. All Hands Bury The Cliffs At Sea consists of electro-acoustic threnodies for an environment at risk due to the effects caused by receding coastlines around the globe. …

First collaboration between Scanner (Robin Rimbaud) and Modelbau (Frans de Waard), composed entirely by exchanging physical cassettes through the post. Each artist worked unpredictably on what the other sent: Rimbaud through Ellitone Farm Detective Ultrarollz and Flower Electronics, de Waard via Modelbau's iPad synths, Korg Monotron and cheap pedals. The released sequence (ten pieces across four LP sides) is one interpretation among many possible mixes. Warm, lush ambient with analogue grain.

On 5 April 2022 I e-mailed Anne about working on a follow-up to our album Oehoe (released by Where to Now? Records in 2020). On April 7 she recorded a bunch of violin, viola and vocal improvisations at home. Gorgeous sounds and melodies, a gold mine to work with. The material basically wrote itself. I started editing and adding electronics (mainly virtual instruments, I don’t own a real harp), and by the end of that month, the album was finished. I always found the music that Anne and I make a b…

1992 release ** Misha Mengelberg's large ensemble, the ICP Orchestra, wends its way here through a program in three parts. Following the brief, whimsical title piece (helpfully translated as "Forest Path Rabbithole I"), the band launches into a series of loose, decidedly off-liter takes on Ellington, generally tackling the real war-horses. Mengelberg's approach is always oblique at best, however, so even as the band sounds semi-traditional in one respect, the harmonies and written elaborations o…

The Amsterdam-based collective Wanderwelle presents the first entry of their trilogy for Imprec, dedicated to telling the story of the climate crisis and its effects on coastal areas around the globe.....

First compilation in a series where other musicians reframe pieces from Orphax's ongoing Dream Sequence cycle, an open-ended sequence of experimental ambient and drone works. Haarvöl, Jos Smolders and Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) each take a different Dream Sequence as point of departure, returning quiet contemplative re-readings that fold their own languages into the source. A study in remix-as-translation across the Dutch and Portuguese electronic-experimental axes.

If Texturalis was a real word it might have something to do with the density or porosity of organic compounds. In the case of Machinefabriek's Texturalis, the word fits the sounds on this album. Sounds indeed, not songs. Anyone familiar with Machinefabriek knows his interest in anything crackling, fizzling and buzzing. For Texturalis, Machinefabriek choose to work on just that; not to be bothered with creating elaborate compositions, but to focus on creating intriguing textures. This resulted in…

On "Echo Transformations", Banabila conceptualizes a virtual space and skates around ideas with freeform glee. He's been working as a composer for theater and TV for many years, and has an impressive catalogue of solo albums, as well as collaborations with Scanner and Machinefabriek - this album feels like an opportunity for him to flex his inter-dimensional muscle. The loose framework is hinged around the fourth world stylings of Jon Hassell, but Banabila has more in mind than reverberated mari…