Launching their brand new ‘Signature Series’, documenting previously unreleased archival works by little known composers, Metaphon returns with the first ever vinyl release dedicated to the little known electroacoustic work of the Belgian composer, "Raoul De Smet”, composed at the Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (IPEM) in Ghent between 1974 and 1989. Comprising four revelatory works belonging to a singular and free standing practice of a crucial and underrepresented creative voice, it’s absolutely stunning, furthering the label’s increasingly ambitious efforts to radically expand our understanding of experimental practices in the past.

For roughly a decade and a half, Metaphon - the Brussels based imprint run by Timo Van Luijk, Greg Jacobs and Marc Wroblewski - has continuously illuminated fascinating trajectories within a number of historically neglected contexts of electronic music and sound art. Primarily focused on work produced in Belgium - with their own criteria of personal taste guiding them well - they’ve produced an incredibly important body of albums that endeavour to respect and support radically forward thinking music and those who make it. Recently, Metaphon has delved into steadily more ambitious ground with a series of releases focused upon the remarkable work of sinfully obscure electroacoustic composers like Nicole Lachartre, Jan Bruyndonckx, Fernand Vandenbogaerde, and Robert Fesler, delivering striking revelations that have helped rewrite our historical understandings of electronic practice during the 20th Century.

Born in 1936, Raoul De Smet began composing while still in his teens. Despite his early focus and having gone on to be educated at the Music Academy of Deurne, De Smet’s early years were particularly varied, encountering him obtaining a doctorate in Philosophy, Linguistics and Art History and doing postgraduate work in Hispanic Linguistics and Literature, followed by four years spent travelling and teaching in Tunisia. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that he properly began to focus on the passion of his youth, immersing himself in the theories and techniques of radical composers like Schönberg, Boulez, and Stockhausen, eventually leading him to the Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (IPEM) in Ghent, and a period of heightened activity at venues like Darmstadt, Gaudeamus, the American Seminar on Contemporary American Music, in Salzburg, and the Venice Biennial, representing IPEM at the International Symposium on Electronic Music.

Despite the distinctions of his wide ranging activities, over the course of his long career Raoul De Smet has remained relatively obscure outside of small circles of fans, and for the most part has built his reputation from his extensive body of instrumental and chamber music works. Little known has been his work within electroacoustic music, composed adjacent to his efforts for acoustic instruments, at IPEM between 1974 and 1989. It is precisely this incredible and overlooked body of radical experimentation that Metaphon’s revelatory self-titled LP dedicated to De Smet draws us into, comprising four of these previously unreleased pieces: “Isolde's Dood” (1989), “Muinkpark om 5 uur” (1976), “Etude VI” (1974), and “Kathy's Nightmare” (1980).

Describing his draw toward De Smet’s work and the value of this collection, Timo Van Luijk states: “His work carries different moods and contrasts, a sort of expressive eclecticism where straight forward evolution often prevails over far-fetched intemperance. However, his work is far from obvious. The four distinctive tracks on this album portray a fresh and unpretentious enthusiasm of a composer discovering new electronic tools.” It’s a fitting introduction to the body of work. Like a great deal of electroacoustic work, the source material utilised within De Smet’s work often remains reasonably obscure via its treatments. This is especially the case for the album’s opener “Isolde's Dood”, a piece inspired by a poem by Erik van Ruysbeek, originally composed for voice and tuba, that we encounter as an entirely alternate tape music version that feels entirely synthesised in its materiality, as bouncing and resonating tones captivate the ear within an alien world. Similarly, “Etude VI” feels entirely otherworldly, while moving into a state of wider and more enveloping ambiences, penetrated by pulses, trickles, and swooping tonalities, constructed around a series of fascinating conceptual considerations on the part of the composer.

While the first side of the LP is endlessly rewarding and engrossing, bringing us deep into the sound world of Raoul De Smet, it is arguably with “Kathy's Nightmare”, created in 1980, that the composer’s true power and range come to the fore. Sprawling to more than 25 minutes that occupy the entire second side, the piece displays a remarkable range while remaining highly focused and constrained. Described by the composer as "a nocturne about a restless night in eleven sequences", originally conceived for live diffusion, the piece is a sprawling journey constructed from concrete and electronic sounds, shifting between engrossing drones, untreated environmental sounds, percolating electronics, wild processed vocalisations, and so much more, that collectively present a singular vision of the possibilities presented by electroacoustic process in truly startling ways.

Absolutely wonderful on every count, Metaphon’s incredible survey of the electroacoustic work of the Belgian composer, Raoul De Smet, presents yet another historical revelation from the label, unsettling long held presumptions about creative practice in the past.