Souvenirs van de Woeste Grond

Souvenirs van de Woeste Grond (roughly translates as “Souvenirs from the Wasteland”) is a part of a landscape-inspired art project inspired by the Dutch province “Overijssel”.

“In this project two artists (Heidi Linck and Hans Jungerius) collected stories about the countryside landscape in order to save them from obscurity. In the second phase of the project eight different artists make a souvenir based on the collected stories.”

This particular album (available as digital download or limited edition CD released by the adventurous Esc.Rec label), is one of those ‘souvenirs’!

Gluid – Metamorphosis; Arpatle – The Day After

Can this be a coincidence?

In the same week I have received two new albums with a remarkable resemblance: both are from Dutch artists, both have a bright ‘lightweight’, almost ‘poppy’, feeling yet are experimental in their creative use of sound samples. Also, both are defying contemporary genres. They’re not ambient, not too experimental, not strictly electronic, not improvised, but definitely not ‘mainstream pop’ either.

Could it be we’re defining a new genre here?


Gluid

Various Artists – Herfsttonen

As the musical part of the “Landtonen” festival in november 2009, “Herfsttonen(Autumn Sounds) celebrated the local district of “Okkenbroek“, near Deventer (in Holland).

This may sound as if it is interesting to local citizens only.
Not true! – That would mean the large part of the world would miss this great project!

The three compositions presented here are very different from each other, but they are linked by the theme, and by the environmental sounds of Okkenbroek. This album deserves to be heard out of the local context, too, because it is dedicated to preserving the kind of rural life that may disappear all too quickly.