Edition of 400. Belgian percussionist and composer Karen Willems presents her debut solo statement with A Fool's Guide to Reality, a work that transforms everyday objects and chance encounters into transcendent musical exploration. Released on Valentina Magaletti's Permanent Draft label, this album represents Willems' most personal artistic statement - a fearless dive into uncharted sonic territories where convention dissolves into pure experimentation. A serial collaborator who has navigated multiple musical worlds with remarkable versatility, Willems has worked with rock and pop bands like Novastar, Jan Swerts and Zita Swoon Group, while also collaborating with improvisers and sound artists such as Aidan Baker, Eric Thielemans, Kaboom Karavan and Jean DL. Since 2020, her 'Terre Sol' project has searched for personal modifications within instrumental practice, focusing on solo compositions that venture beyond traditional percussion approaches.
"When I make music, there's no plan," Willems explains. "I draw my inspiration from everyday life. Small encounters, people, and the greatest source, of course, is nature. There we find all the beauty, all the sounds we need. With my solo work I try to stay far away from my familiar drum set. Only then I can create a special universe. Eccentricity and playfulness go hand in hand with exercises in tension and release, and calls for connection in antisocial times. It's difficult in this world obsessed with productivity and results, and you really have to be crazy to release music these days. So A Fool's Guide to Reality is a fitting title."
The instrumentation reads like an inventory of a particularly inspired creative space: citer, Casio keyboards, field recordings, tambourin, mikado sticks, xylophone, pots, bells, kindergarten instruments, snare drum, noisebox, crispy shakers, synthesizers, and effects. Yet this isn't mere sound collage or academic conceptualism - Willems transforms these humble materials into something approaching the transcendent, creating what might be called "domestic surrealism" where the mundane becomes mysteriously charged.
What emerges across these tracks is neither aggressive noise nor precious minimalism, but something more elusive - a kind of earnest playfulness that acknowledges the absurdity of making art in desperate times while refusing to succumb to cynicism. There's something almost Cagean in her approach to chance and everyday sounds, yet warmer, more human, less concerned with systematic rigor than with emotional truth and immediate physical response.
