Various Artists - Fragment 2 -1985- (Cassette, Eksakt 014), Netherlands

After Fragment 1 that I posted not so long ago here is the second Fragment compilation created by Tilburg based label Eksakt (more info about Eksakt in the previous post). Just like the first one it contains some previously released and unreleased tracks combined with ethnographic recordings. This release came with a screen-printed artwork with cartoon-dogs as well. A similar dog became the logo for Eksakt on their other releases.

The most notable Dutch group present on this sampler is Kiem. Kiem came from Rotterdam and combined jazz influences with analog synthesizer electro and strong rhythmic elements. Rotterdam has one of the biggest ports of Europe and Kiem used these characteristic elements and sounds in their music. They created three albums which are absolutely amazing and pretty easy to get still. Their self-titled first is probably their best. Other Dutch figures on here are Eric Toornend, a member of post-punk group Exploiting The Prophets from Tilburg (also present on Fragment 1) and Toon Bressor who was in one of Holland's best groups from the eighties called Nasmak.

Dutch Artist and musician Jacques van Erven contributes a piano track and Dutch jazz-bass player Niko Langenhuysen does some solo tracks too. Langenhuysen used to be in the Tilburg based jazz group Groep Ohm in the early seventies and his album Hypo from 1984 is a real gem. Lastly there are post-punk tracks by obscure German band Les Autres and French band General Inconnu and a couple of ethnographic recordings from Indonesia and Sri lanka.

This is actually a great compilation with lots of hard to find tracks and also another piece of Dutch underground from the eighties.

Get it HERE

Guus Janssen - On The Line -1980- (LP, Claxon), Netherlands

Guus Janssen (Heiloo, 1951) is a Dutch composer and pianist. He is a somewhat lesser known figure coming from the Dutch free improvisation and jazz scene. Janssen is known to approach music in a very open way and to blur the borders of  musical genres like classical, jazz, impro or popular music. He is a frequent member of the famous Dutch impro-jazz ICP Orchestra. Since the early seventies he has been collaborating with most of the renowned Dutch improvisation musicians like Harry Sparnaay, Theo Loevendie, Han Bennink, Ab Baars and others. Nowadays Janssen is still involved in many musical projects.

On this album Janssen displays his solo piano improvisation efforts. There are lots of unexpected piano movements and manoeuvres present combined with pieces written by himself. On The Line came out on the great Dutch record label of improvised music Claxon which featured a.o. records by Michel Waisvisz, Maarten Altena and Moniek Toebosch. All of that stuff is really worth it to check out and a must for fans of Dutch impro music.

Get it HERE

Juan Carlos Nuñez y José Ignacio Cabrujas - Same -1980- (LP, Private Pressing), Venezuela

This record here is a contemporary composed avant-garde album from Venezuela. It was created by one of Venezuela's most important modern composers Juan Carlos Nuñez and the famous playwright and one of Latin America's most important telenovela writers José Ignacio Cabrujas. Among Cabrujas' work are soap opera adaptations for the famous Venezuelan novels Doña Bárbara and Canaima written by Venezuelan writer (and once president) Rómulo Gallegos. It's interesting that men so famous created this pretty unconventional musical piece. During this album Nuñez leads the orchestra and plays the piano and synthesizer, whilst Cabrujas wrote the lyrics.

The album is a thematic homage to the city Caracas and showcases a combination of spoken word poetry, modern composed pieces, latin motives and invocative sound impressions. Some of the pieces contain Venezuelan instruments like the cuatro. It sheds light in an impressionistic and unconventional way on the daily life of Caracas but also shows its profound depth and the serenity that lives underneath the city's hectic character. Ofcourse this particular feeling lives on in today's Caracas as well.

The first side is a bit crackly, but this is quite impossible to find in any condition I'd say, mainly because of its limited copies.

Get it HERE

Unknown Artist - White Dove -1980's- (Cassingle, Ding Dong Disk), Netherlands

This here is a very obscure cassette single from the early eighties on the legendary Dutch minimal synth and home-taping label Ding Dong. Ding Dong was from the city of Arnhem and was created by Van Kaye & Ignit. It had acts like Bene Gesserit, Legendary Pink Dots, André de Saint-Obin o.a. on it and published some legendary compilations like Turkish Delight.

The band on this cassette is totally unkown to me, but it contains two versions of the track White Dove, one with vocals and an instrumental version (which I like even better).The song is a great fuzzy synth wave track with some nice non-electric percussion. The instrumental version ends with a humoristic sketch in Dutch which was apparently recorded at the beach of Zandvoort.

It might have been an unreleased demo of some sort. The cover art seems to be a cut-up of André de Saint-Obin's Sound on Sound tape. Maybe he is related to this release? Who knows?

Get it HERE

VA - Risonanze/2 - Evocazioni Musicali di Temi Biblici -1979- (Tape, Edizione Paoline), Italy

This cassette is a compilation of some of our favorite Italian composers (some of them were part of  Il Gruppo Nueva Consonanza): Egisto Macchi, Ennio Morricone, Giorgio Carnini, Alessandro Alessandroni, Sandro Brugnolini and Miriam Bordoni. Some of these composers are known for creating soundtrack and library music for great Italian (B-)movies from the sixties and seventies.This time a set of songs based on biblical themes was put together by papal record label Paoline which still exists today. So what exactly happened here?

Risonanze was a series of three based on biblical themes that came out both on cassette and vinyl. I think most of the songs existed before on other library records or albums by these composers. But somehow they got compiled together on this series to resemble biblical subjects and notions placed in a religious framework. Surely these recordings are older than 1979, but this cassette apparently came out late seventies (or at least the record according to Discogs).

It almost feels like this series was published as souvenirs from Vatican City or as some sort of religious paraphernalia just like a small statue or postcard. In any case, this series contains beautiful music and does create a sacral and sometimes serene atmosphere, although it also goes into freaky psychedelic music sometimes. Furthermore I know that during the early seventies lots of Italian records with a Christian concept leaning towards prog-rock, electronic music or folky stuff came out. If someone could point me out to some of the more interesting ones I'd be very happy.

Sadly we don't have the first volume of the series, but volume three will follow shortly! Stay tuned!

Get it HERE

Donated by Kim

áPolók - Kondásdiszkó -1998- (Cassette, Bahia), Hungary

After this very early material of áPolók (The Nurses) I posted about a year ago, here is a later release by these Hungarian musical cultfreaks from the city of Miskolc. The title of the cassette refers with the word 'Kondás' to an old Hungarian swineherd. So the title basically means "Pigmansdisco", which is very very Hungarian.

áPolók are not to be caught in some type of musical genre, they exceed the borders of music types so much that sometimes you have no clue how to pinpoint them. The music ranges, depending on the release, from punk to RIO to Techno. Kondásdiszkó is basically áPolók's satirical take on the new digital era when the first computer programs to make music became available for the masses. It's a totally absurd collage of video game music moving into proggy soundtrack quirkiness through bad equipment genius reminiscent of Japanese nineties dada 8-bit fuckery acts of Boredoms-minded weirdness.

One of the songs is called Török Ádám who is the frontman and flutist of one of Hungary's well known jazz and fusion bands Mini from the seventies. They named the song after him because their track happened to get into similar sounding realms. There is always a lot of intricate mockery within the Hungarian (music) culture present in the music of áPolók.

This is a very psychotic, yet amazing recording that ultimately makes your head explode. Moreover it's excellent music to accompany you during this summer. Get this next piece of the áPolók puzzle and great cassette from Hungary's underground now! Oh yeah, and the cassette inlay tells us not to put this tape into a CD-player or computer.

HERE



Update on Archaic Conventions (my other blog!):

Unfortunately I don't find the time to upload nice rarities or other weird releases and also write about them next to this blog. Therefore I will just start to upload that stuff to my Youtube Channel. This way I can uncover a lot more weird stuff while maybe write a line or two about it in the description box. If you need the file, just write me a message.

So if you haven't subscribed yet you can do it here.

Thanks - Bence

Various Artists - Fragment 1 -1984- (Cassette, Eksakt 011), Netherlands

So my friend Kim and I were looking for records here in Amsterdam on Queen's Day (actually called King's Day now), which is a Dutch festivity taking place at the end of april to celebrate the monarchy in a very commercial format which is quite absurd in itself. The only positive thing is that the whole city turns into a huge flea market and everyone is aloud to sell their second hand stuff in front of their house door. By accident we stumbled upon a shoebox full of old home-taping cassette releases from the end of the seventies and early eighties (we could not believe its content!). Some of those tapes are available on the net, whilst others are quite obscure and will be posted on the blog (it actually started with last post already).

Eksakt Records hailed from the Dutch city of Tilburg and was part of the Dutch home-taping scene but also incorporated more jazz and ethnic types of music into a new wave paradigm. Some of their best releases consisted o.a. of Dutch group Nieuw Hip Stilen and French act Ptôse. Actually Eksakt was one of the more interesting labels from the Dutch eighties because of the blurring of musical borders, combining DIY attitude with musicians with a conservatory background and an interest in less attention targeted foreign countries.

They also published a couple cassette compilations to showcase their releases together with music of their own taste. This first fragment compilation was their first endeavour doing this. It comes with a screen-printed artwork with cartoon-dogs on it. Featured on this compilation are ethnographic recordings from Samoa as well as Tilburg based Post-Punk group Exploiting The Prophets, Amsterdam based Moluccan percussionist Zeth Mustamu and Dutch impro-jazz saxophonist Paul van Kemenade. Also on here is Ptôse and half Half Japanese musician Jad Fair. The whole is held together by excerpts by Peer Raben, who created numerous soundtracks for New German Cinema enfant terrible director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Actually most songs are taken from real releases by all these artists but as a compilation it makes it worth it anyway.

The second Fragment cassette will follow soon. On the artwork it says that you have to use noise reduction to listen to this. Unfortunately (or luckily) I don't have that on my cassette deck, so quite some white noise is apparent. Make sure you find your way into the whole Eksakt Records catalogue, because there is lots of interesting stuff!

Get it HERE