Music from Netherlands

The Portuguese word Selva means “Jungle”, and this collaborative opus with Rutger Zuydervelt aka Machinefabriek is one more incursion towards Paradox. The Selva made this paradoxal enterprise its trademark: a trio with two string players (cello, bass) and a drummer with free improvisation and creative jazz as the matrix of their playing, but combining it with other musical languages, going from a deterritorialized kind of imaginary folk or world music to the picking of Renaissance and contempora…

** This first-time vinyl reissue (configured as single LP) comes with 24-inch x 18-inch poster and 24-page booklet ** In 1981, The Ex started squatting Villa Zuid, an estate overlooking abandoned Van Gelder paper factory in the village of Wormer, Netherlands. Formerly the home of the factory’s manager, the Villa briefly served as the band’s base of operations and would inspire one of The Ex’s most impactful, enduring albums in their 40+ year history. Originally released in 1983, Dignity Of Labou…

** This first-time vinyl reissue comes with 28-inch x 39- inch full-color poster ** While awaiting the release of Dignity Of Labour, The Ex headed back into the studio in early 1983; this time with a new friend—The Mekons’ Jon Langford—helping produce. Originally released in April 1983 (only a month after Dignity Of Labour), Tumult marks a major evolution in Ex-sound. Opener “Bouquet Of Barbed Wire” emerges snarling out of post-punk atmospherics with Terrie Ex’s glacial guitar, Bas Masbeck’s lop…

Michel Banabila, born 1961, is a sound artist, composer, and producer. Banabila releases music since 1983 and has produced musical scores for numerous films, documentaries, theatre plays and choreographies. This album collects 11 songs from his early years, released on tape, vinyl EPs or limited CD editions: beautiful minimal loop-based electronica, neo-classical pieces and ambient drone music. A true discovery!  Numerous threads run through the music of Michel Banabila, whose contemporary work …

Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex -- a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall -- have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. Disturbing Domestic Peace, The Ex's debut album, appeared mere months after their first single, 1980's 'All Corpses Smell The Same'. Originally released on the band's own Ver…

Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex -- a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall -- have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. Originally released in 1982, History Is What's Happening features one of the most harrowing title/cover art combinations in recent memory. What at first glance looks like a f…

**few copies available** Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex -- a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall -- have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. All Corpses Smell The Same, The Ex's first single, marks the beginning of this DIY odyssey -- appearing in June 1980 on Hé Records, a precursor to th…

A Colourful Storm presents a new album by Beequeen, the duo of Frans de Waard (Kapotte Muziek) and Freek Kinkelaar (Brunnen). Over two long-form pieces, new material from 2020 and almost-discarded fragments dating back to 1988 are collaged to form a brand-new composition. Think woodblock, guitar, static radio signals, ethereal ambience. An honorable addition to Beequeen's discography and a beautiful piece of the Dutch avantgarde with historic ties to Edward Ka-Spel, De Fabriek, Merzbow, and Nurs…

The title Ex Patris (from the fathers) plays on the idiomatic baroque lute compositions presented here which emulate the classical repertoire. It also refers to this almost forgotten instrument, which was passed on by the fathers. The Jozef Van Wissem's aim is to bring back and liberate the lute. The four compositions on Ex Patris form a circular narrative of interlocking repetitive melodic series. The follow up to Important release “ It is all that is made” kicks off with the pro apocalyptic tr…

The friendship and collaboration between Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) and Alessandro Tedeschi (label founder of Glacial Movements, has been going on for several years now and it is constantly evolving. The Dutch artist, in addition to carrying out the graphic designs of all Glacial Movements' releases, is also part of the label’s catalog with the album Stillness Soundtracks released in April 2014. Almost 6 years from its publication, here is the new musical tale of the fantastic journey in…

2017 Release. The composer, bandleader and reedist Willem Breuker, who died in July 2010 at the age of 65, is often omitted from contemporary assessments of Dutch jazz, where the primacy of pianist Misha Mengelberg (1935–2017) and drummer Han Bennink feels indisputable. Those two musicians left a huge impact on the Amsterdam music scene through the work they created in the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra—work that carries on through Bennink and pianist Guus Janssen, who took over the piano chai…

**numbered edition of 25 copies** "Modelbau is not Frans de Waard’s latest in a series of names used to create music, but it is indeed the latest one for a solo vehicle. Each of the names, and that includes my own name, stands for something particular, an idea, and something not found in the other monikers I am using. Modelbau is, like Freiband, not a proper German word (it should be Modellbau, but I thought that looked ugly) and as such is probably already a lo-fi name, and as such also very pe…

Originally released by Ghent's Dauw tape label in 2016 and quickly sold out, here reissued on CD with two new interpretations added. The original is a pair of eighteen-minute pieces: Dwaal layers orchestral washes against radio static and erratic noise, while Wold spreads sparse piano notes over a bed of fine hiss, supported by wind and bird recordings from Vriescheloo. The reissue adds remixes by Benoît Pioulard (organ and guitar) and Nicola Ratti (synth sputters and rhythm).

With a sporadic presence on record-breaking level and sparse -and usually unannounced- performances, Ghone returns after several years with his vessel being the 15-minute "Zagtel Jaar Mileit" and his destination the explorarion of the most experimental moments of the project. During the evolution of the monotonous and catatonic buzz, field recordings and sparse noises are gradually added which, without attempting a piecemeal expansion, accomplish the desired sonic stripping of the synthesis. Gho…

The latest release on Canada's Seance Centre label focuses on the work of long-serving Dutch experimentalist Michel Banabila, gathering together examples of his "excursions into otherworldly and imagined realms". The first record boasts tracks recorded between 1987 and 2017, shuffling between humid, percussion-led workouts, exotic ambience, dark and creepy soundscapes and sticky electronic/acoustic fusion. The second record (clips of which are not featured here) replicates the track list of the …

A Dutch composer's private synthesizer odyssey, 1977. Andriessen conjures a 'trance symphony' on Minimoog and Rhodes: luminous, minimal and quietly euphoric, drawing on Berlin and Düsseldorf electronics rather than the concert hall.

Frans de Waard's first full CD under the Modelbau alias, a project built around a deliberate constraint: cassettes, small synthesizers, guitar effects, microphone and amplifier, with little or no computer involvement. Four Squared Wheel was captured in an extended studio session around a Philicordia organ routed through guitar effects and amplifier, signals mixed on the fly into a near hour-long single piece. Live electronic drone with the unmistakable grain of analogue circuitry.

Late in 2011, Celer and Machinefabriek teamed up and recorded the 7" 'Maastunnel / Mt. Mitake', to coincide with their tour in The Netherlands. They then decided to make it into a trilogy of 7" singles, all self-released in limited editions. Now, Irrational Arts has compiled the six tracks of the 7"s onto a CD‚ titled "Compendium (Collected Singles and Remixes)". The CD also includes a new, additional track by Celer and Machinefabriek, and remixes by Stephan Mathieu, Sylvain Chauveau and …

Mini album, CD, self released by Machinefabriek, November 20, 2015. 200 copies. The Dutch word 'deining' (pronounced 'dining') translates to 'heave' and also 'commotion'. For 'Deining', I asked violinist Anne Bakker to bow each string of her instrument while sliding slowly from the lowest note to the highest, for exactly five minutes, as fluently as possible. Obviously, it turned out nearly impossible to do this really smoothly, but the unavoidable irregularities are a welcomed bonus. Anne also…

Recorded live at a crucial period of its existence, this Angouleme May 18, 1980 is a splendid testimony of the Willem Breuker Kollektief, a flagship of the new European jazz orchestra. Founded in 1974 to set to music the musical and social ideas Willem Breuker, the WBK brought together musicians that were somehow his students, and he had leverage their individual qualities although initially many of them were not properly improvisers as could be  colleagues such as Bennink, Mengelberg, Maarten A…