De Fabriek, Ausland

*150 copies limited edition in special packaging* "The other project is a recent one, in which Roberto Auser, also known as Derk Reneman, also known as Ausland and Martijn Hohmann of De Fabriek talked about doing an update of the legendary ‘Neveleiland’ LP by De Fabriek (their second LP from 1984), in which there is music and narrative, about Indonesia and Iceland, based around invisible cities by Italo Calvino and Hakim Bey. De Fabriek’s boss, Richard van Dellen, also had something going with Harold Schellinx, a Young Lion a long time, and these days, an author and conceptual musician with cassettes at his heart. Everybody has different expectations about this project, becoming a tower of babel. On ‘Neveleiland’, the Icelandic narrative is by Haraldur Ingi Haraldsson, who also narrates four pieces here. The starting point was thirteen instrumental pieces by Ausland, all of which were processed by Schellinx, and later on, Van Dellen, Hohmann, and Peter Ehrmann did other processes and the final mix.

Like many other works by De Fabriek, as a miasma of people delivering ideas, sounds and mixes. Different from ‘Neveleiland’, there aren’t two long stories here in languages you don’t understand (well, most anyway), but fifteen short stories, with languages from more countries and, again, not always to be understood. I believe to hear a bit of Schwitter’s ‘Ursonate’ in there somewhere. It is all about the atmosphere music and words create here, vistas of terra incognita. The music relies heavily on the synth-based sounds by Ausland, complete with a bit of rhythm, but maybe a little less than otherwise. Whereas the old ‘Neveleiland’ LP consists of two coherent stories and everything sounds quite together, here the nets are cast wider, and there is a story within a story, with music also across many fields, remaining a mystery quality. Excellent (also two great packages here)" - Vital Weekly