Whispers, torn paper

So endlessly creative & so relentlessly collaborative are Jan & Romke Kleefstra that it's disconcerting to find that LMYE's favourite Friesians have gone over a year without a formal release. But the hiatus is over, thankfully.

A trio of new & imminent albums starts with the long-gestated first offering of their venerable Tsjinlûd collective - a book ('full colour hard cover, with black & white contents, containing photography, drawings, paintings and poetry by all seven Tsjinlûd-members') & CD package. Mixed, edited & graphic designed by the great Machinefabriek - the Kleefstras' partner in Piiptsjilling - it is freighted with their characteristic drowsy, somehow ceremonial atmosphere but takes on a chattering, hall of mirrors quality through the collective's salty suite of North Sea voices. 

In addition, the brothers' trio with fellow Tsjinlûddite Anne Chris Bakker has new cassettes due soon on both Low Point (previously responsible for KBK's lovely Griis) & Tombed Visions. A richly, darkly droning instalment of the former - some of which was previously on Ambientblog.net's 10th anniversary collection a year ago - emerged yesterday...

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Idle tractors

It's disconcerting to discover from Poland's Monotype that Lydia Lunch is still with us (though it's surely impossible that she's not made at least one record called Medusa's Bed already?). But it's more confounding still to have missed Gau, the beguiling debut from CMKK - a 'supergroup' from the LMYE pantheon, comprising serially promiscuous Dutch collaborators Jan & Romke Kleefstra, & Machinefabriek, plus Celer. 

"Without any plans we just went for it and ended up with hours of material that was later edited to the 48 minutes that is 'Gau'" - Machinefabriek. 

Blurb: "In March of 2012, nearing the end of a tour together through the Netherlands and Belgium, Celer, Machinefabriek, and Jan and Romke Kleefstra gathered in a country studio, spending an afternoon improvising to record Gau. Recorded by the old hardcore rocker Jan Switters at the Landscape studios in Gauw, situated in the countryside in the midst of Friesland, the place was surrounded by green fields with idle tractors, few trees, buzzards and only massive farmhouses dotting the horizon. From the almost four hours of original studio recordings, later mixed down in Rotterdam by Machinefabriek, this 48 minutes, titled 'Gau', represents the highlights of an afternoon with coffee and orangecake in the isolated Frisian countryside. 'Gau' is a Frisian word that means in a hurry or fast, but is also the Frisian notation of the village name where the studio is located."

CMKK - Gau (excerpt) [MP3 here]

The quartet hinges on Machinefabriek, of course. Besides his rewarding but unobvious recent pairing - each's epic fecundity notwithstanding - with Celer, Rutger already participated in the great Piiptsjilling with the Kleefstras (& Mariska Baars). 

Jan & Romke in turn continue to mine rich seams of salty Friesian impro with a host of other partners & contexts...

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Three leaves

In the absence of new Richard Skelton, a batch of unpublished, alternate & reinterpreted music is a welcome way of holding the fort. A second slice of the sweetly thrumming, yearning Riftmusic (originally on the Sustain-Release private press, later also an Aeolian Edition download) is a fine start to this new 'Archival' subscription series - illuminating one of the early catalogue's lower profile pieces with a darker, denser, seemingly dronier riposte. 

Blurb: "ARCHIVAL is a series of digital music editions of Richard Skelton's work - primarily comprising previously unpublished recordings, but also alternate versions and new reinterpretations of the music he published via Sustain-Release between 2005 and 2011."

A second new series is Skelton's 'Artists Editions' ("extremely limited pressings of work using the finest available materials, and accompanied by one-of-a-kind prints, media or objects") - recently inaugurated with the 'text work' Become a Ford: "A continuation of Limnology - 38 'ings' found in dictionary definitions of water-words, arranged in a grid and used as the source of a new text work."

Riftmusic (Part Two) by Riftmusic

Riftmusic (excerpt) ~ Riftmusic




Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Black tea

Time for a brew - & not just any old brew, but a steaming vat of the robust East Frisian Black that hints at Jan & Romke Kleefstra's deeply rooted, vernacular sound (& a couple of bags of which accompany the salty, tangy experiments of their new Sinneplakken on Time Released Sound, along with other treats like local soil & a Viking collage...).  


"With its conceptual basis set in the history and atmosphere of the Frisian Islands, this music is steeped in those shorter days and longer nights of mysterious northern climes. The Frisian poetry that is being read on several tracks is blended with the electronics and sampled sounds of these flat, sub sea level islands, and the spirits of a long founded and somewhat obscured pagan past."


The release adds Christiaan Kuitwaard to these relentless collaborators' trio with Sytze Pruiksma (their Deislieper (Hibernate) was part of LMYE's Festive 50+50 of last year's key albums). Another trio, with Anne Chris Bakker, also has new-ish (& neglected, here at least) material out - the affecting, sombre Griis on our cherished Low Point. 


"Frisian for grey, but also for something completely awful, dreadful and terrible. Griis is a slow moving, softly flowing, dark triptych. An ominous soundscape, created by bowed, finger picked, feedbacking, layered and squeaking guitars."


Among the streams from these two must-haves below hear also the implacable, intense build of KBK's unreleased Nacht en Dei (suspect even my limited Frisian can manage that...) - a downloadable soundtrack to images of Shinkan Tamaki's (excerpt below too). 


Kleefstra|Pruiksma|Kuitwaard|Kleefstra - Wynfûgel 


Kleefstra|Pruiksma|Kuitwaard|Kleefstra - Oanspielt

Kleefstra|Bakker|Kleefstra - Stille Mûle Fan De See

Kleefstra|Bakker|Kleefstra - Nacht en Dei (unreleased)

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Every 15 seconds

Footnotes coming out of our ears, or something like that...anyway, a batch of compelling new material that usefully augments some of LMYE's posts this week. 


Firstly, two more of Tim Hecker's diverting piano 'sketches' for the immense Ravedeath, 1972 - more muted & reflective than Sketch 5 (covered here), but still highly affecting. 


Tim Hecker - Sketch 2


Tim Hecker - Sketch 3

Plus a few stand-outs from the latest Oval salvo - 10 more (did I see 15 claimed somewhere?) slivers of snappy Popp from the bonus to the forthcoming OvalDNA (earlier coverage, & before that).


Oval - III (preview)


Oval - Inwendig (preview)


Oval - Glass UFO (preview)


 Oval - OvalDNA (Bonus Tracks Preview) 


Also further knotty, insistent treats from the Machinefabriek/Jan & Romke Kleefstra orbit (earlier). 

 Machinefabriek - 15/15 (fragment)


 Machinefabriek - Brokstukken (album preview)


Machinefabriek & Gareth Davies - Mackerel Sky


kleefstra/pruiksma/kleefstra - Twasidich wurde


Kleefstra / Pruiksma / Kleefstra - Stadich lit ik dy kalder wurde 

Finally, more of the celestial Yann Novak (earlier). 


Yann Novak - Presence (excerpts)


Portrait by Steven Miller. Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Lilting wind

Around in Stoke Newington or Hebden Bridge this week? If yes, don't consider missing Friesian expressionists Jan & Romke Kleefstra live with Gareth Davis (plus Library Tapes & Clem Leek, in Hebden's alluring case...).

LMYE caught the trio aboard the good ship Boat-ting on Monday. The evening's great surges in the Thames underscored their intensely poetic summoning of landscape & memory - made even moving by being largely improvised & with Jan unveiling a seemingly more performed, repetitive approach to recitation in the absence of drones to "float" his affecting voice on.

Also, hear Experimedia's preview of the exceptional Wurdskrieme by the brothers' "experimental supergroup" Piiptsjilling with Machinefabriek & soccer Committee.

Blurb: "On their second full-length, experimental supergroup Piiptsjilling set out to both deepen and roughen up the pastoral and peaceful sound of their 2008 debut release. A coherent unit formed by guitar & poetry duo Jan and Romke Kleefstra as well as Machinefabriek's Rutger Zuydervelt and Soccer Committee's Mariska Baars, the band delineate increasingly dark lyrical textures resonating with nocturnal atmospheres and tactile sound-operations on guitar, pedals and various looping devices. Building on patient and immersive improvisations and working with both sonorous drones and ghostly micronoises, "Wurdskrieme", which translates to "Cry of Words", moves at a dream-pace, substituting linear logic with a brushwood of metaphors and emotional abstractions. The underlying feeling of a subcutaneous tension is further accentuated by Jan Kleefstra's expressionist poetry delivered in the language of his native Friesland, a province in the far North of the Netherlands. Contrasting serene soundscapes like opener "Unkrud" with more tranquil moments featuring acoustic instrumentation ("Wurch"), the result spans up a sonic space that not only represents an evolution from their earlier work, but also takes them far beyond traditional categories and conventions."

Previous Kleefstra coverage (includes full stream of debut release). More here & here.

Piiptsjilling - Wurdskrieme (album preview) (via experimedia )

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Cairene sinew

While we're doing footnotes to recent posts, any chance to revist the brooding, moving Piiptsjilling quartet with Jan & Romke Kleefstra, Machinefabriek & soccer Committee has to be taken. Ahead of tours to the UK & Japan this autumn, a characteristically intense, sinewy bonus from one (not sure which) of two new releases later this year - stream below...

Previous Kleefstra coverage (includes full stream of debut release; extract). More coverage here & here.

NB: UK promoters, please get in touch (earslend at gmail.com) for a few late October dates potentially still available for Jan & Romke Kleefstra...

Piiptsjilling-bonustrack

Bonus (to a bonus...): FRKTL's Spöken - fine orientalist sort-of drone ("Cairene street field recording and overdubbed improv on a full-size electric violin with Whammy pedal") highlighted as Headphone Commute's track of the week.

FRKTL - Spöken

NB: map by Wutsje at nl.wikipedia

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.

Peep-chilling

Revisiting Machinefabriek's relentless collaborations & co-operations: first, a ravishing fresh taste of the brooding, moving Piiptsjilling quartet with Jan & Romke Kleefstra & MF fellow-traveller soccer Committee ahead of two new releases surfacing later this year (stream below, via Fluid Radio).

Previous Kleefstra coverage (includes full stream of debut release; MP3 extract here). More coverage here.

NB: UK promoters, please get in touch (earslend at gmail.com) for a few late October dates still available for Jan & Romke...

Second, the lovely Par Avion from Ithaca Trio (whose brilliantly noodling New Music By is still on LMYE rotation - stream below). This flickering, vampy beauty closes with Machinefabriek's The Desolate Delay & The Harmed Harp (sample of the first IT track below).

Previous coverage (also here)

Finally, some solo Machinefabriek lobbed in as a marker/guilty prod for a longer future post...

Piiptsjilling - Unkrud

Orca Towards Ground - Ithaca Trio



Interlude - Machinefabriek

Important: LMYE only makes music available that artists/labels have chosen to share freely. Let us know if something here shouldn't be.