★KRAAK
KRAAK's 10s & 20s
*200 copies** "Presenting a condensed survey of KRAAK’s recent past and immediate future through a selection of tracks that chart the breadth of the label’s output. The 18 songs contained within this unassuming piece of plastic speak for a generation of artists whose contribution to the legacy of KRAAK is in no way insignificant: the faded melancholia of Ignatz, the cosmic outlook championed by Köhn, the bejeweled exotica of Bear Bones, Lay Low, the brainwave tingling of Floris Van Hoof... All o…
Love
*250 copies** "Yor is a Leipzig outfit formed by artists Nataly, Tony and Susanne. Known in their local scene for their Beach Boys covers and associations with bands like Mosquito Ego, the trio confounded the bleary-eyed audience at KRAAK Festival 2019’s 24-hour experiment with their offbeat no wave that does not shy away from moments of funky reflection or manic free-form detours.On Love, they bounce from energetic bursts of guitar-laden catharses to groovy bass lines designed for a strange int…
Ayîk Adhîsta, Adhîsta Ayîk
**300 copies** Razen celebrate their 10th anniversary with Ayîk Adhîsta Adhîsta Ayîk, an album that takes a paragraph from Cael Gustav Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections as a reference point to set off a journey that goes from light to dark, from day to night, from life to death, and back. As much a reflection of primal imagery and rituals of knowledge as a way of coming to terms with anxieties about the chaos of the night, the album concerns itself with the question: who - or what - are we in…
Intestinocephalo
**Limited edition of 80 copies** Coming from Italy by way of Berlin, Giorgio Dursi has fashioned an artistic practice where the familiarity of commonplace objects and voices fuse and contort into completely unexpected avenues of sound experience.In Intestinocephalo, his first release on Kraak, monologues languish into states of dormancy like an episode of intentional catathrenia and then expand, evolve and, finally, disengage.In order to project this tension within the amorphous, Dursi deploys e…
The Fluid Computer
**220 numbered copies** Floris Vanhoof works on an hybrid form of music and visual arts. Inspired by structural film and early electronic music he makes audiovisual installations, expanded cinema performances and music releases. Experimenting with cross-medium translation and compatibility, he questions our viewing patterns and the possibility of the new perspectives to emerge. Regardless of nostalgia, he purposively chooses analog technology, reinventing 'high-tech' and looking for ways to make…
Stanzas or The Law of the Good Neighbour
Henry Andersen is a Brussels-based visual artist and composer. Trained as a minimal and reductionist composer under the wings of Peter Ablinger, he moved from music into visual art, writing and sound performances. His debut vinyl is a recording of the longrunning piece ‘Stanzas’ or ‘the Law of the Good Neighbour’. On each side, a pair of his friends reads simultaneously from a list of words. The list is an unfinished result of a word game Andersen has been playing for several years. Stanzas… see…
Guts Magnet Sea
Chik White is the moniker of Darcy Spidle, jaw harpist,
tape collagist, non-institutional locally-sourced field recordist, and
founder of the OBEY Convention festival. Spidle was part of the Canadian
crust-punk scene in his younger years, but he eventually evolved
towards more adventurous sides of music. In 2009, after obtaining a
collection of jaw harps, his musical output took its most dramatic turn.
Since then, he has released a string of tapes and records on seminal
underground labels…
Red Brut
Red Brut is the moniker of Marijn Verbiesen (part of Sweat Tongue and JSCA). As Red Brut she is isolated, displaying a highly talented ear for day-to-day sounds, musique concréte composition and spontaneous sound collage. The KRAAK record series — documenting off-stream’s currents — presents her self-titled debut, recorded at home and re-arranged in the come-down of an immersive tour in Japan. The 7 chapters document an intuitive and reflective journey through sensitive amateurism and hi-end mus…
Braublff - Materie und Laut
**Edition of 250 copies with silkscreened booklet** Braublff (Materie und Laut) is an archival piece with work from Gerhard Rühm, Alessandro Bosetti, Tomomi Adachi, ArfArf. With specific contributions and live recordings. Braublff is a series of live events organised by DE PLAYER (Rotterdam) and KRAAK (Ghent) and brings together contemporary vocal poets, text-sound composers and language-based artists with the pioneering work of the avant-garde. It deals with the question: “Where and how…
Polygraph Heartbeat
Next to being one of the core members of the acoustic deep listening ensemble Razen, Ameel Brecht is a trained guitar player who has a life-long involvement with the instrument’s repertoire under his belt. On his debut album “Polygraph Heartbeat”, he puts his guitar-heart on the line by means of 9 compositions for steel resonator and resonator mandolin. The album is a reflection of polyphonic music as seen through a multi-coloured and highly personal lens, as Ameel’s guitar idiom crossbreeds a c…
Kreis Plon
LP version. Includes download code. Almost 20 years ago, Jürgen De Blonde debuted on Kraak with the nowadays unfindable and almost visionary album 1 (1998). It was the starting point for a vital and wondrous exploration that lead him over paths of glitch, idm, shoe gaze, hypnagogic pop, improvised music, straight forward synth music, field recordings, and kraut... In the middle of this ungraspable adventure through contemporary electronic music, Köhn stands as a genuine artist that stayed t…
The Drain
For the last decade, Belgian guitarist Bram Devens has been releasing solo recordings under the name Ignatz. A couple of cassettes have come out in the States, but most of his releases have been elusive imports. Thus, we have taken it upon ourselves to do a public service and release a domestic version of an LP that will appear on the (K-RAAK-K) label in Belgium. This must be something like the sixth or seventh studio album Ignatz has cut, and it's a remarkably solid slab of mysto-folk/blues inv…
Yaqaza
Sea Urchin is the Berlin-based brainchild of the Italian Francesco Cavaliere and the Egyptian-Austrian Leila Hassan. Being core members of the underground, they already released a 7” in 2012 on D.A.S., a tape in 2014 on Stenze Quo, and Cavaliere recently released two solo-LP’s on Hundebiss.
Yaqaza is their long-awaited vinyl debut. The duo surprises with a multicoloured, mystic and intriguing collage of deconstructed pop hits, Italian music concrète, King Tubby-like dub and Algerian Rai. It is n…
Hidden Dragon
Shetahr is a three headed trash pop band from Brussels. They are primitive, demented and existential. Driven by animalistic drums, edgy guitare and a howling voice they'll bite your face off. Expect a stripped down set-up and a raw performance. Released on Kraak records. Recorded and mixed at THE YELLOW TAPE by Peter Van de Veire. Mastered by Frédéric Alstadt.
Endrhymes
Brussels-based group Razen present Endrhymes, a work of hardcore melodic minimalism and raw, dystopian deep listening. Exclusive artwork by Bryan Lewis Saunders. The four pieces on Endrhymes thrive on an almost compulsory focus and improvisation carefully developed during many concerts. As a trio, Razen erase the acoustic deep listening from their previous album to explore territory of raw, melodic, and psychedelic minimalism that refers to the massive works of Louis Andriessen. The first and la…
Remote Hologram
"KRAAK is proud to present the new double LP by Razen. After a split-lp with Sheldon Siegel and the debut-cd Rope House Temper (both on Kraak), a number of tapes and the album Reed Bombus LFO (Deep Distance), the duo retreated to various chapels and churches in the countryside around Brussels. They started exploring the practices of deep listening and acoustic research during a series of recording sessions. Using largely forgotten or ignored instruments such as shawm, church organ, Ondes Marteno…
El Telonero
it took ernesto gonzalez more than three years to record the follow-up for his 'vallée de dith', but it was definitely worth the waiting! 'el telonero' is a tribute to the art of opening up for other bands. this album was created during a period in which gonzalez got more comfortable on stage, often setting the vibe for the night. concentrating on the ultimate tuning-in quality. the loose kraut-inspired jams of his second record are pretty much absent here. the focus is on analog synths a…
Live at kraakfestival 2011
Imagine tony conrad & faust reincarnated as a french punk trio in 2011, using only a minimal drum kit, bass and hurdy-gurdy to drone you into another dimension. imagine this as a live performance during kraakfestival after your seventh glass of duvel and among a crowd of head banging music freaks and a spontaneous outburst of fool's dances. then you pretty much get the picture of this recording. for many of visitors a highlight in the festival's history. documented in the lo-fi cassette traditio…
Cycles of confusion
Connecting his many worlds, ideas and influences into highly personal live performances and recordings, floris vanhoof keeps on amazing people here and abroad. after his vinyl debut on ultra eczema, this is his second outing on wax. cycles of confusion unites two different aspects of vanhoof's work. side a is a live piece recorded to four tracks and mixed in his home studio. it shows vanhoof's riley inspired side, focussing on consciousness outside the mind as evoked by modular synth soun…
Live at Tweeklank
At the first edition of Tweeklank festival Limpe Fuchs and Gerard Herman proved the universal and cross-generation language of improvised music. Coming from the revolutionary sixties freak scene in Germany Fuchs still plays with the same energy on her self-built instruments consisting of impressive bronze and stone sculptures. This concert evolves around Fuchs’ creatures, her viola, Herman’s diy duchampwheel, alt sax and expressive vocal interplay. A truly wonderful live experience captured for …