Since its formation in 1984, there have been several distinct phases of Kapotte Muziek in which the group changed. The group commenced as a duo of Frans de Waard and Christian Nijs, and operated as such until 1987 when Nijs left and started to learn to play the guitar. Then followed a phase in which De Waard actively searched for other musicians to contribute sounds to be used as source material. In 1993 a new phase commenced when the group were invited to play a series of concerts in the USA. Initially, this was a tour with the Dutch group THU20, and Kapotte Muziek planned a show with pre-recorded tapes and slides. One by one, the members of THU20 backed out of the tour, leaving only Peter Duimelinks in the end, at which point it was decided to play as a duo under the name Kapotte Muziek.
Having spent the first week of the tour in New York purchasing equipment and rehearsing, a general plan of '15 minutes of drone, 15 minutes collage-like music and 15 minutes of noise' was formulated. As the tour (17 concerts) progressed, however, new elements were incorporated into the music, with the lineup for the first number of performances expanded to include Daniel Burke's long-running post-industrial group, Illusion of Safety. In 1995, the duo became a trio, adding Roel Meelkop (also from THU20). Since then, the trio (sometimes duo, once solo) has played 121 concerts in Europe, the USA, Canada, Russia and Japan. The group took something of an informal hiatus in 2017 after a duo concert by Peter and Frans in Norway, but regrouped on December 30th 2023 to perform as a trio again (for the first time since 2012) in Germany.
Until 2004, Kapotte Muziek also released studio recordings by Frans de Waard, although these recordings had very little connection with the live sound. It was decided to stop these studio-based activities, and Kapotte Muziek would exclusively play live. Recordings of concerts would be released, with very minimal editing in most cases, on CD, cassette or vinyl. The 2017 concert in Trondheim, Norway mentioned above is particularly significant in the Kapotte Muziek trajectory, not only as it marked the beginning of a period of live inactivity. The concert took place at Klubb Kanin on its 20th anniversary, the group also having performed at the opening of the venue in 1997. To mark the event, the group were asked to do a cassette to document these two concerts. To fit both performances onto a single cassette, the 1997 recording was heavily cut up, leading to the current phase of Kapotte Muziek. One thing that has been a constant factor for Kapotte Muziek is the recycling of sound - in concert, by using junk from the streets, and in the studio, through the continuous re-use of sounds. In the first phase, Christian Nijs recorded sounds and instruments, and Frans de Waard created collages using these recordings.
The intensive editing of the 1997 Trondheim recording led Frans to a natural conclusion, that live recordings from the group's history could be used as source material for future releases. After three trial pieces for compilations, an entire album came to life. The result is 'Discon', a made-up word for 'distilled from concerts'. Each of the 13 pieces is created by cutting, pasting, superimposing, and editing one concert. No other electronic treatments were used, no granular synthesis, etc. The cover is a collage from the booklet that came with Kapotte Muziek's release, 'Columbus, Ohio', from 2004, which was created from a black and white painting Frans exchanged with an unknown painter for some merchandise at that concert.
