Monday, December 18, 2023

Available

Tapes

Algis Fediajevas - Po trejų metų
Shanyio - Veacul unei clipe
Yokujitsu - Kalt
Augenmusik - S/T
Mascara Snake - Mountain Diary
Alek Novak - Pod Vodom
Gintas K - Resonances
Mike Hovancsek - Texture Studies
Joseph of Kirezi - Session and Live in Tokyo
Seirios Savvaidis - Mesourania/Wendy's Wedding
Vibration of Words: Jazz Poetry from Hungary
Keiko Higuchi x Manuel Knapp: Summoning Ancient Spirits
Kris Vanderstraeten & Frederik Leroux: Live at The Audioplant
My Cat Is An Alien & Nad Spiro - La Casa Encendida


DISTRO
Louise Landes Levi - Behind The Buddha’s Mask (tape)

** Limited edition of 60. Comes with two inserts ** Limited to 60 copies only and released by Counter Culture Chronicle, the “Behind the Buddha's Mask” cassette is a stunning effort, largely built around the unique recordings made by Christophe Albertijn at the Middelheim Museum in May 2021. While the pandemic forced poet, writer, sarangi player and global wanderer Louise Landes Levi to reside in Japan, her voice – reciting poems from the “Behind the Buddha’s Mask” poem – was transported to the confines of Bruce Nauman’s site-specific installation named Diamond Shaped Room with Yellow Light, hosting the hypnotic, ritualistic playing of Bart De Paepe (Harmonium, Shruti box) and Koen Vandenhoudt (Sarangi, bells), under their Bombay Lunatic Asylum guise. Flirting with the outer-reaches charted by Buddhist music, “Behind the Buddha's Mask” is a trance-inducing, meditative, cosmic world of sonic interplay. On Side B we find Louise Landes Levi recorded live at Restaurant Tangine, NYC on November 20, 2002 with Ira Cohen, Kelvin Daly, J.D. Parran and assorted mysterious guests.
Louise Landes Levi is a poet, translator, musician, and performer whose travels have charted an elaborate constellation of mystic and cosmic pathways. A founding member of Daniel Moore’s Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, she participated - from 1967 to 1969, alongside Terry Riley and Angus MacLise - in multidisciplinary drama inspired by Artaud’s research with the Tarahumara, the Balinese Gamelan, Tibetan monastic ritual, and Indian dance. Following studies at Mills College with sarangi master Pandit Ram Narayan, Levi traveled alone from Paris through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, on her way to India to study the country’s traditions of Classical music and poetry, becoming the student of Ustad Abdul Majid Khan, and later of Ali Akbar Khan, Annapurna Devi, and La Monte Young.

CD



Miminokoto ‎– Koenji 07/02/2016 (Plunk's Plan, reissue of out of print sloow tape)




Majutsu No Niwa ‎– Ecstatic Crystallization (Musik Atlach, reissue of out of print sloow tape)

Lp

Wendingen 1918 - Recherche Dans Le Rêve


Ilta Hämärä - Origo (Bergpolder)

Bergpolder #09 is a 12" from the enigmatic duo Ilta Håmåra. Audio dream directors Timo van Luijk (Af Ursin, Elodie) and Bart de Paepe (Sloow Tapes, Sylvester Anfang II) played as Ilta Håmåra on a MiMa night in Rotterdam (NL) in 2016. It was the day before Kraak fest, and they had a tour tape (Origo) with them. A great night, as so many MiMa nights. Timeless Reality, featuring Family Underground, were also on the bill and on fire too: passport losing lo fi stoner garage. The toilet was broken, so everybody had to go to Hostel de Mafkees around the corner when nature called. Timo and Bart played a Paris, Texas-set, or at least in my memory. A show full of hope (Korg) and emotions (guitar). The tour tape was the same. Four songs which were moving like a flying carpet in the room when you put it on. Three of the four songs of the tape are on this 12". Added is a song from the same era, which fits perfectly. Music for at least your soul. Edition of 240 (plus 50 special artist editions) with riso pasted on covers and a riso flyer insert from the 2006 show made by Marijn Verbiesen / Red Brut.



Ilta Hämärä - Origo (artist edition, hand coloured & limited to 50 copies)



Ilta Hämärä - Velloa 7" (Meeuw Muzak)

"Timo Van Luijk and Bart De Paepe in troubled water" says the label press: Ilta Hämärä, the duo of Bart De Paepe (Sylvester Anfang II, Bokrijk, Charles Vögele) and Timo van Luijk (Af Ursin, Elodie, La Poupee Vivante). An imaginary source that combines Bart’s hazy psychedelic antics and Timo’s subtle and abstract sound manipulations in otherworldly spheres of cosmic dimensions




BART DE PAEPE ~ MELKADER LP Original Artwork by Bart de Paepe Numbered edition of 25 ex. d’or044
WENDINGEN 1918 ~ MUZIKË MUUSIKA (Des Astres d'Or)

**numbered edition of 40 copies** "Little by little, the mass turned like a slimy and forceful nausea, a kind of immense influx of vegetable and thundering blood. And the small fibers trembling at the edge of my mental eye, broke off with a vertiginous speed of the tense mass of the wind. And all the space trembled like a sex organ which the globe of the burning sky was battering." Wendingen 1918 is dedicated to the Dutch Architectural Magazine ‘Wendingen’ from 1918 and the Work and Life of Antonin Artaud.

Raymond Dijkstra is an autodidact Artist from Indonesian / Dutch / English / Belgian / Portuguese descent. He has developed a highly personal acoustic-experimental and expressionist style, using his body as a tool for ‘automatic writing’. His explorations in this area are carefully documented by his own imprint Le Souffleur, especially in the series “Catalogue du Bruit”. Since about 2009 he also started working on a different, more ‘musical’ type of music, hereby incorporating electronic sources and a more eleborate use of effects. Since 2003 he’s been combining most of his limited publications with original exclusive handmade artworks of himself. Bart de Paepe is a Belgian Musician and Artist who has worked in many diverse directions, leading to an eclectic array of experimental and underground escavations of his innerworld. His solo music is portrayed by a compact electronic, yet psychedelic style. He’s the Art Direcor for the labels Sloow Tapes and Sloowax and has collaborated with Louise Landes Levi, Timo van Luijk and members of Embryo. Frédérique Bruyas is a Native French Reciter of (mainly) French Literature. Approaching the texts almost as an actor, she’s showcasing her superb sensitivity for atmosphere and her excellent ability to translate written word in spoken word with great respect to the original texts. The texts used on Tremblaient à la lisière de mon œil mental are part of L’Ombilic des Limbes by Antonin Artaud, a text written in 1918 during his stay in a mental asylum and published only a decade later.

Artwork Description: Cover tied with rope; Innercover with wooden Dowel designed by Raymond Dijkstra. Original Artwork by Bart de Paepe, Raymond Dijkstra. Each copy is different.



Wendingen 1918 ‎– La Décorporisation De La Réalité (Des astres d'or)






Various: Au-delà (Meakusma)

Au-delà is a collaborative record by La Scie Dorée and Meakusma. It features eight pieces of music by La Scie Dorée affiliates. For the 2018 Meakusma Festival, La Scie Dorée and Meakusma set up a collaboration that brought performances by Timo Van Luijk, Steven Stapleton, Christophe Heemann, Daniel Denis, Bart De Paepe, Kris Vanderstraeten & daniel duchamP to the festival in Eupen, Belgium. This was followed up with a night organized in the province of Limburg in Belgium featuring performances by Frederik Croene and Timo Van Luijk, Tom James Scott, Ecka Mordecai and Andrew Chalk.
Timo Van Luijk founded La Scie Dorée in 2000 to release his solo work as Af Ursin and the various collaborative projects he is involved in. Af Ursin opens Au-delà with a piece escaping straightforward definition, setting the tone for the album. The general focus of Au-delà is on musical space and the at times gentle yet always focused upset of musical and emotional signifiers. Tracks by legendary artists such as Michael Ranta, Steven Stapleton and Christophe Heemann together with work by relatively young or obscure performers and new projects such as Circaea, Raymond Dijkstra, Bart de Paepe and Vincent Epplay all delve into the niche that is free improvisation, frankly defining inward and outward space and movement and thus questioning the purpose of the niche itself.
Au-delà features a music that borders and transcends the genres of free improv, ambient, industrial and avant-garde composition. Its intention lays firmly in surpassing the general idea that experimental and improvised music is intended for the initiated only. Its subtle stance on musical beauty only adds to that intention. The collaboration between La Scie Dorée and Meakusma benefited greatly from the support of the Flemish Community and Ostbelgien.

Tracklist:
1. Af Ursin - Voyance
2. Michael Ranta - Save Alchi (excerpt)
3. Circaea - Anemones
4. Raymond Dijkstra - L'enveloppement Cotonneux du Bruit...
5. Christoph Heeman - Die Züge
6. Nurse With Wound & James Worse - The Creptile Lickbug
7. Bart De Paepe - De Vaag
8. Jac Berrocal & Vincent Epplay - Svavius



Books

Bart De Paepe - mellow my mind: a sloow tapes discography
Malcolm Ritchie - Encounter with the Great Mother. Ayahuasca in the Andes



orders & contact: sloowtapes at g mail dot com

Yokujitsu

Yokujitsu
Kalt
Sloow Tapes - CS 35

Rubies flicker in and out the redounding dark smoke of urban imagery, circles of deep space ignited with fiery psychedelic mists. Ride on shadowy golden manes in fleeting bands upon the winds of Yokujitsu. Edition of 70 copies.


Algis Fediajevas

Algis Fediajevas
Po trejų metų
Sloow Tapes - CS 40

An oaken prism clothed in precious gems of labyrinthine fingerpicking totems inscribed with carvings of ancestral druids (John Fahey, Robbie Basho...). Let the ripe fruits of the quivering arrow melt from the Lithuanian bow . Edition of 70.


Shanyio

Shanyio
Veacul unei clipe
Sloow Tapes - CS 40

Arise from the slumber of vegetable earth into translucent timeless nowhere clouded forests and drink from the crystal fountains of Uejima Onitsura. Shanyio weaves the tongues of Romania and Japan into a wondrous expansion and contraction of dulcimer, zither, psaltery, kantele etc. Edition of 70 copies.


Friday, July 21, 2023

Mascara Snake


Mascara Snake
Mountain Diary
Sloow Tapes - CS 25

Not to be confused with the sometimes Captain Beefheart clarinetist of the same name, this particular Mascara Snake makes instrumental and atmospheric sound collages, influenced especially by Moondog, Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Luc Ferrari. As the snake sheds its skin Pacôme Genty reveals himself, who you might remember from the just as enigmatic La Non-pareille lp he released last year with his duo Des édens (together with Antoine Cortes). Edition of 60 copies.


Augenmusik

Augenmusik
S/T
Sloow Tapes - CS40

Tape version of the already sold out Chocolate Monk cd-r from earlier this year. Maybe we tripped too long on Samara Lubelski's and Werner Nötzel's (Metabolismus) heady combination of space violin & weirdo electronics. Not for the faint of heart. Edition of 70 copies.


Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Alek Novak


Alek Novak
Pod Vodom
Sloow Tapes - CS 54

Serbian dystopian bedroom psychedelia from the one man band Alek Novak that fits these gnarly times very well. Poetic lyrics (so i've been told, I don't speak Serbian) over a psychedelic rock/noise sauce makes perfect listening while walking through shady corners of Belgrade, tasting the last drops of your bottle rakia. 70 copies.

Gintas K


Gintas K
Resonances
Sloow Tapes - CS 44

Gintas K, once part of the first Lithuanian industrial band Modus but since over two decades he dedicates himself to electronic music, more specific granular synths and live electronics where he takes fractions of notes and moulds the sounds through speeding/slowing down and other obscure alchemical processes into new abstract configurations of space debris with remnants of drones, hums and bleeps. 70 copies.

Resonances, the first of these, ‘was recorded live, using computer, midi keyboard & controller on Autumn 2021’ and has been released by Sloow Tapes in an edition of 70 copies. It spins slow-swirling vortices around hovering hums and low-humming drones over the course of its ten, comparatively short (only a couple extend beyond four minutes), ponderous tracks. It’s perhaps one of his more varied works, both sonically and atmospherically – and Resonances really does explore atmospheres and cavernous swampy echoes. (Aural Aggravation)


Gintas Kraptavičius was once a member of the industrial band Modus, and afterimages of their music can often be heard in the cold, metallic nature of his solo work. Resonances comes from a live session where he used a computer, a midi keyboard, and a controller. He modulates sounds, slows down and speeds up the layers, and sinks into sound waves and musical constellations. At the same time, he keeps an eye on structures – the compositions are relatively short, apart from two which reach eight minutes. Overpowering drones rumble from one side, a mass of noise and interweaving atmospheric layers from the other – an impressively constructed mesh of sonic sketches. (The Quietus)


Gintas K has been on these pages a lot of times. I must admit that, despite not knowing Sloow Tapes all too well, I am a bit surprised to see his work. I always think of him as a serious operator of laptop music, which seems not to be the home at Sloow Tapes. He creates ten pieces of music using his computer, midi keyboard and controller, but as this is a cassette (the label has no Bandcamp), I found it hard to tell where a track starts and stops. This cassette could very well contain one track per side. Oddly, perhaps, there is also an element of free play in Gintas K's music. Other than what I think is his stricter approach to composing, these pieces arrive in a free-flowing modus. Sounds drop in, quite uneventful, but are just 'there' and change in form, may grow, or reduce or simply, as unexpectedly disappear again. Yet there is never silence because there are many sounds, each fighting for our attention. It never becomes chaotic, as Gintas K manages to control the proceedings, which he does quite well. A certain psychedelic, ambient quality is part of this music, and I can see why Sloow Tapes found this to be an interesting addition to their catalogue. (Vital Weekly)


Mike Hovancsek


Mike Hovancsek
Texture Studies
Sloow Tapes - CS 90


Late night atmospheric soundtracks for two short movies. 'Aea' is an acoustic improvisation with tons of illustrious instruments and contributions on shamisen and shakuhachi by Lydia Schneider and slide guitar by Mohonbeena Soumalaya Mukherjee. 'Antroposcene' is a meditation of floating electronics on our disastrous pollution of the world. Mike Hovancsek is a former member of Pointless Orchestra and collaborated with Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh (who composed some of the earliest tape music in 1944). 70 copies.

He has releases on Pointless Music (and he was a member of the Pointless Orchestra) as early as 1991, and Infinite Number Of Sounds Recording Company, and yet this is his seventh release only. The four lengthy pieces receive some liner notes in which he mentions that he plays all the instruments but doesn't specify these. There are some guest players, such as Lydia Schneider on the shakuhachi and shamisen and Mohonbeena Soumalaya Mukherjee on slide guitar. The first side is all acoustic, and the second is electronic. What ties these sides together is Hovancsek's rather free approach to sound. On the electronic side, with two versions of a piece called 'Anthroposcene', the music is all about modular synthesizers, resembling all things living on this planet but under attack by humans. The sound changes constantly and sounds like a swarm of bees (or ants, but is that a swarm?) and a great piece. The two pieces, on the other side, are quite different. While also constructed freely, from many recordings stuck together, especially in the title piece, the music has a relatively reflective mood and the most in 'Aea - Espiral'. There is a raga-like drone machine, and on top, we hear what seems to be the processed sounds of the wind instruments. With the slide guitar, this free-style, hippie-like element gets more confirmation in the title piece. Maybe a bit too much on the incense side for my taste, but there is a fine touch of experimentalism to each piece, which saved it in the end. (Vital Weekly)

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Joseph of Kirezi

Joseph of Kirezi
Session and Live in Tokyo
Sloow Tapes - CS 70


Formed in Ikebukuro (Tokyo) in 2012 Joseph of Kirezi has been roaming the outermost corners of the black clad psychedelic underground ever since. Amorphous visions of insanely loud guitars smeared all over a distorted obsidian night sky. Edition of 70 copies.

Thursday, March 10, 2022

Seirios Savvaidis


Seirios Savvaidis
Mesourania/Wendy's Wedding
Sloow Tapes CS 40


Compiling two EP's (Mesourania (2019) and Wendy's Wedding (2016) by Seirios Savvaidis (who also plays in The Dead Ends), one of Greece's best kept secrets. Some mind expanding songs that reflect deep knowledge of traditional Greek music by way of sixties and seventies pychedelia and cosmic folk troubadours. Savvaidis's relaxed Greek vocals make you float all the way up Mount Paggaio. Edition of 70 copies.


Seirios Savvaidis is a Greek musician whose work borrows liberally from psych rock of the 60s and 70s, complemented by the more cosmically written folk artists of the time. Compiling 2019's in 2016's Γάμος της Γουέντυ, Sloow Tapes gives a radiant look to his music with this double EP cassette. There are overt nods to traditional Greek music here. Gently surging acoustic ruminate comfortably alongside more muscular bits of personal introspection. Through the complex mechanism of these two EPs, we hear how multiple genres occupy the same space within songs. He even brings in some Laurel Canyon vibes to soften the transitions from sound to sound - he contains these living, breathing worlds, which seem to always exist. It's a definitive ride as we are carried on the backs of his inspirations and watch him interpolate their various lineages. (Beats Per Minute)

Friday, September 17, 2021

Wendingen 1918

Wendingen 1918
Recherche Dans Le Rêve
Sloowax 008


After a couple of limited art releases on Des Astres D’Or (now Astres d’Or) this is the first more widely available release of Wendingen 1918. Aural analogue surreal investigations by the trio of Raymond Dijkstra (Asra, bhaavitaaH bhuutasthaH, Santasede), Bart De Paepe (Ilta Hämärä, Innercity, Bombay Lunatic Asylum) and Frédérique Bruyas (Emmanuel Dilhac, La Poupée Vivante, Nivritti Marga). A hybrid mix of dynamic electronics, spatial sounds and poetry expressing a dazzling physical whole. Wendingen 1918 is dedicated to the early 20th century Dutch architectural magazine Wendingen that was associated with expressionistic architecture: it attempted to distort reality to express subjective, emotional experience. Edition of 300.

Best of 2021 (Soundohm)

This LP is the third LP by Wendingen 1918. Band member Raymond Dijkstra released the two previous LPs were released on his Des Astres d'Or. As with many of the releases on that particular enterprise, these are highly limited (25-40 copies) and usually don't make it to these pages. Of this new LP, 300 were made, so my first introduction to their music; may also be the case for more people. The other two members are Bart de Paepe and Frederique Bruyas. The latter is a regular collaborator of Dijkstra, and I must admit I don't know too much about De Paepe, other than he worked with Timo van Luijk as Ilta Hämärä (see Vital Weekly 1137). Wendingen 1918 refers to a Dutch magazine for architects and designers, and the first issue is from 1918. [wiki:] "Wendingen initially was an important platform for Dutch expressionism, also known as the Amsterdam School, and later endorsed the New Objectivity." As with much of the music I heard from Dijkstra (solo and others), this is another improvisation work. The four pieces are quite different. 'Je M'abandonne à la Fièvre Des Rêves' opens up here and a play of strings and percussion, rambling and rattling, and it comes with a bunch of delay and reverb, so it has a bit of a distant sound. 'Recherche Dans Le Rêve' (at seventeen minutes the most extended piece; this side of the record is over twenty-four minutes) reminded me of Nurse With Wound, with similar studio improvisations. Lots of drums rolling about, lots of cymbals, Bruyas' voice and the studio used as an additional instrument. It cuts random bits of sound in and out of the mix. The shortest piece is 'My Days Have Been a Dream' is also the quietest piece here, with slow violin moves, doubling and drifting away. This piece could have been a solo piece. Following the quietest is the loudest piece, 'Façons D'éveillé', which is a Korg Monotron synthesizer manifestation. The first few minutes are subtle, with some piano notes, but it's there alright when it starts. The piano and, later, string instruments stay there as well, but the biting sine waves of the synthesizer leave a strong imprint. Do not expect the sort of noise that Jliat would review, but it is louder than the three previous pieces. I must say it is also not the sort of improvisation that I thought was that great. Everything that happened in the background sounded of more interest to me but was too distant to reach. Despite that, I thought this was a very good record, full of exciting improvisations. (Vital Weekly)

Keiko Higuchi x Manuel Knapp

Keiko Higuchi x Manuel Knapp
Summoning Ancient Spirits
Sloow Tapes – CS 72


Sprawling sublime archaic noise electronics from visual artist Manuel Knapp (C.C.C.C, Tim Blechmann, Government Alpha) and vocal acrobatics by Keiko Highuchi (Albedo Fantastica (with Sachiko)and lots of others). Floating somewhere beyond harsh and hazy psychedelic dreams into the blackness of a Japanese night. Edition of 70 copies.

Vibration of Words

Vibration of Words
Jazz Poetry from Hungary
Sloow Tapes – CS 50


Classic recording of Hungarian-American poet/translator Gabor G. Gyukics together with Hungarian improvisers Béla Ágoston, Viktor Bori and Csaba Pengő, exhaling words and sounds in surreal late night jazz clouds of instant composition. Gabor G. Gyukics is a minimalist nature poet with a philosophical beat outlook. He translated Attila József, Endre Kukorelly and Attila Balogh in English, and Ira Cohen in Hungarian. Edition of 70.

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Piero Heliczer

 


PIERO HELICZER – I MUST BE MORE LIKE AN ANT THAN A CIGALE BECAUSE I LIKE TO SING IN WINTER


Counter Culture Chronicles and Casioli Press from The Hague have joined forces with Bart De Paepe’s Sloow Tapes from Stekene, Belgium to publish a lovely edition dedicated to Piero Heliczer. The book, designed by Lula Valletta and risographed by Stencilwerck, is “a tribute to Heliczer’s creative mind and to the man himself by friends, admirers and people Heliczer worked with”, according to CCC’s René van der Voort. Memories of Heliczer, eyewitness reports, investigations into lost works and actions and writings from obscure Dutch magazines by Heliczer himself have been compiled in this edition, which also contains photographs by Harry Hoogstraten, a letter to the Dutch queen by Heliczer and a couple of other extras. Other contributors than René van der Voort and Harry Hoogstraten to this Heliczer tribute are Eddie Woods, Harry Ruhé, Hans Plomp and Alain Diaz. This book is a valuable addition to the existing works and biographies dedicated to Piero Heliczer as well as a collectible book in itself.

Poet, publisher, actor and filmmaker Piero Heliczer was born to a German mother and a Polish father in Rome in 1937. After his father, who was active in the resistance, had been murdered by the Gestapo, Piero and his mother emigrated to the US in the 1940s, where he enrolled at Harvard in 1955 only to drop out two years later. Heliczer moved to Europe, where he co-founded the seminal Dead Language Press with his high school friend, poet and composer Angus MacLise. After having relocated to London in 1960, Heliczer returned to the US in 1962. There he worked with Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground and produced some 25 experimental 8mm films. After having lived hand to mouth in Amsterdam and New York in the 1970s and 1980s, Heliczer moved to Normandy in 1984, where worked in a secondhand bookstore until his death in a road accident in 1993.