Ende Shneafliet

Formed in Heiloo, a small town in the Netherlands, in June 1981, Ende Shneafliet began as a three-piece called King Ende Shneafliet before the live drummer was swapped for a drum machine and the project expanded into a fluid five-person studio collective. Over just two years they recorded more than 70 tracks in constantly shifting combinations of two or three members, working out of the Trumpett Sound Studios in Heiloo and the Freakowitz and Einstein Studios on the Wadden island of Texel. All three official cassettes, issued on the Trumpett label (also home to Doxa Sinistra and The Actor), were made in this intensive, communal, almost anonymous way: Animals From Outer Space (TRUM 0003, September 1981), Harde Winters Anno 1982 (TRUM 0009, February 1982), and Symphoy Romant (TRUM 0016, March 1983). Their only live performance was a set for the VPRO radio programme Spleen on 13 September 1983, recorded in the NOB 24-track mobile studio and later released on Staalplaat. Shortly after, they called it a day.

This 5LP box set (VOD129) is the first comprehensive vinyl edition of their complete output, gathering all three officially released tapes alongside the VPRO live concert and a substantial selection of outtakes, demos, and archival material from the Trumpett archive. The music belongs to the Dutch minimal synth tradition at its most distinctive: cold, rhythmically inventive, and shot through with the slightly absurdist sensibility that characterised the Trumpett label's whole ethos. NTS described them as "a sound that is minimal or cold wave with influences of new wave, synthpop and avant-garde electronica" and noted their refusal of categorisation. Limited to 500 numbered copies with individually numbered certificate.