Loek Dikker - Love Cry And Super Nimbus -1970- (LP, Private Release), Netherlands

Finally I tracked down one of the last mythical lost records from the Dutch free-jazz and avant-garde 70's realm that I tried to find for many years. I have never seen a copy of this record before, probably also not many copies of this private release were pressed. It's also not listed on Discogs. I only knew that it existed somehow, but had no idea how it sounded nor what the cover looked like. I apologize in advance for the somewhat vague pictures I took, since the record comes in a very fragile and quite large foldout poster that was hard to scan (the cover reminds me of Soft Machine's first album cover). It's a hyper rarity that could have easily been included on the NWW-List (which is receiving some increased attention at the moment, with yet unknown consequences).

Love Cry and Super Nimbus was one of the first efforts by Amsterdam born jazz pianist Loek Dikker who was supported by a group of great Dutch musicians (posing like some sort of football team on the record cover). Loek Dikker would become more famous later in the 70's with his Waterland Ensemble that played very intricately composed jazz suites. He would also start composing for cinema in a later stage of his career.

For this particular recording, still hailing from the cosmic provo and hippie high-times in Holland, the line-up is Loek Dikker (piano, percussion) Erik-Jan Kromhout (violin), Aimée Versloot (alt-violin), Indonesian-Dutch musician Wim Essed (bass), Ralph de Jong (drums) and Pierre Courbois (drums). Courbois is also known from his amazing experimental progressive rock and free-jazz group Association (P.C.).

The record starts with a recording of an old gramophone recording of Gloomy Sunday (Hungarian: Szomorú vasárnap), also known as the Hungarian suicide song, a piece composed by Hungarian pianist Rezső Seress in 1933. The urban myth was that many people that commited suicide had been listening to the song and it also became an exemplification of the widespread reputation of the Hungarian people having a melancholic nature. The piece was popularized due to the interpretation by Billie Holiday.

When the actual music starts we hear a varied effort mostly leaning on heavy improvisation and  deranged classical music meeting the modern composed "avant-garde". Not only are instruments used unconventionally, the record also uses collage, found and existing sounds, backwards played Indian singing and has a piece where the listener is encouraged to be in control of panneling the music from left to right on his or hers stereo listening equipment. We have entered a world of musical deviance and playful provocation where cosmological tuning and cucumber drums are reigning. What the music actually means we read from the liner notes:

"Side 1

Trauriger Sonntag (Gloomy Sunday) is the attempt of a semi-authentic reconstruction of a much loved 78-rpm record.

Cosmoligical Tuning 1: a summary of more than an hour. Collage. Ralph de Jong handles the drums.

Cucumbers is a work by bass player Wim Essed that was written for the Calvé quartet. Ralph de Jong on drums.

Smooth Triangular is a graphic piece by Loek Dikker, mostly written in triangular shaped notes. Pierre Courbois: percussion. Followed by a commercial and non-fitting accompaniment.

Side 2 

Cadmium Primrose is a little musical work by pianist Dikker. Pierre plays drums.

Emptiness is a full Concert Hall is a strong example of desk work by composer Loek Dikker. The writing time of the piece has costed only slightly more time than the execution. Aimée Versloot is playing alt-violin here.

Vioolkonsert in A van J.S. Bach is being played in the ever popular "choose your music"-version. With the help of the balance knob on your stereo amplifier you can make what you want. Have fun with Ralph and Johann. 

Cosmological Tuning 2 a version with Pierre Courbois

Souer Grapes by W. Essed is based on problems with starting and archetypes"

So much can still be said about this album! Another missing link of the Dutch cosmic free-jazz and improvisation history. ps I just realized almost 50 years are between the birth of this release and that I'm posting this here today.

Get it HERE

Orkest De Volharding - In Het Woud Is Veel Te Doen -1977- (LP, Cineclub Vrijheidsfilm en Solidaridad), Netherlands/Uruguay

Orkest De Volharding (Orchestra Perseverance) is the oldest Dutch "Democratized" jazz and modern composed music orchestra that was founded in 1972 by probably the most innovative and important modern composer of The Netherlands, Louis Andriessen. He played together with many important Dutch jazz and improvisation musicians like Willem Breuker (who later also revolutionized Dutch free jazz with his legendary Willem Breuker Kollektief), Willem van Manen and Bernard Hunnekink and many others.

De Volharding was founded in the aftermath of the Nutcracker actions (Aktie Notenkraker): directed actions against the classical music establishment and its musical conventions. These conventions had to be cracked and hierarchical structures in music were criticized (for example getting rid of the conductor to give musicians their own space). During the late sixties and early seventies there were many emancipatory cultural movements and actions in Holland, in theatre there was Aktie Tomaat (Action Tomato: drama students going to the theatre to throw tomatoes at the actors). These sentiments partially derived from the legendary counter-cultural Provo Movement (1965-1967) that in its political urgencies, freedom thought and its critique of the capitalist state and economy (causing environmental problems etc.) can be seen as a precursor to Hippie movements worldwide. They pioneered the potential of happenings and subversive yet pacifistic actions to make political statements in The Netherlands.

Another reason for these cultural actions aiming at radically changing the values of society was the Vietnam War and the discontent with post-war conservatism. At that moment lots of people saw the direct results of the west-block (capitalism) versus east-block (communism) and for many young people in the west socialist and Marxist ideas became subversive, but also more appealing as a result of the cruel Western warfare and the undesirable excesses of capitalist society (environment, social inequality etc). Orkest De Volharding also had many musical pieces favoring the socialist side. They  did the music for many theatre plays of the left-wing cultural sphere.

In 1977 De Volharding did this album called "In Het Woud Is Veel Te Doen", meaning: "In The Woods There Is A Lot To Do" ("En La Selva Hay Mucho Trabajo Por Hacer"). The music was composed by Bernard Hunnekink and played by Orkest De Volharding. The music on this record is actually a soundtrack created for an Uruguayan Children's movie with the same title. On the A-Side of the record we can hear the instrumental version and on the B-side again the same piece accompanied by the Dutch lyrics (to my ears still less interesting than the instrumental, even though I speak Dutch).

The text is for children and it's about wild animals in the forest that are being captivated by a hunter that wants to bring them to the Zoo. Later they manage to escape by boat and the story concludes with the moral that says: "Nobody should be ever taken from his or her home. Never again like how it used to be before." Not sure if this is also a metaphore for something in the Uruguayan political history: probably.

The music reminds me of many Dutch modern composed records I posted in the first years of the existence of this blog. It even reminds me a bit of certain compositions by Ennio Morricone, who also should have had a small influence on Louis Andriessen. The album also reminds me of the "Alemania-Bolivia" tape that No Longer Forgotten Music just posted: strange conceptual music for, and partially by Children about the differences between a children's life in Bolivia as opposed to a children's life in Germany. Actually the German political Krautrock band Floh De Cologne also did a concept album about the Chilean coup d'état in the early 70's called "Mumien". There were many examples of albums that were conceptually and musically combining the Latin American and Western European world within their 1970's (political) context.

There are lots of nice drawings of animals for children included on the record cover that I cut up and all put in the video below. I end with the liner notes from the sleeve about them:

These drawings were not made to be published: Actually they were a sort of dialogue. The only way in which a comrade could think to break through the bars of his jail cell. As such he managed to send out a little black pigeon with a little red beak. And with a message of battle and hope it reached his little daughter. Every mother, every father everyone who is being incarcerated in a "Zoo" at the moment could have made these sketches. Every one of them hopes to see their children. They all know: "How much there is still to be done in the forest". To this parent and their children we dedicate this story. 

Not on Discogs.

Get it HERE



Update:
I was invited by students of the Amsterdam University and the EYE Filmmuseum to a private screening of this animation film and many other films from the Cineclub Vrijheidsfilm, cinema militante, archive. I will update the information about this release soon. You can watch En La Selva Hay Mucho Trabajo Por Hacer in its original Uruguayan version below:

Dionys Breukers - Koer Locale -1992- (LP, W139), Netherlands

This is a record with compositions by Dutch keyboardist Dionys Breukers. It was released through W139 which is a gallery and art space that is located in the center of Amsterdam. It was established in 1979 mainly to offer space to artists outside of the established art world in The Netherlands. W139 still functions today somewhat in the same way and places a large emphasis on art installations inside of its building. You can still find surprising exhibitions there if you want to escape the tourist inferno of the red light district.

From the liner notes of the record:

Koer Locale is the third project of the series called De Centrale, that is being realised by the W139 foundation in Amsterdam. Three artistic leaders are connected to it: Bas van Tol, Madje Vollaers and Pascal Zwart. In the spring of 1992 they created a hull from different elements a.o. a rotating wall, a cascade and a bar. Based on this composition various participants of different disciplines were asked to create a weekly new order by adding different "building blocks". One of these building blocks was provided by Dionys Breukers. In his contribution, to be heard on this LP, he led himself by the notion of background music: muzak. Basically this is opposite to the intention of the interior-project: to fill in a background was out of the question. But don't worry: the muzak of Dionys Breukers is not real muzak, but an original composition. During Koer Locale his musical building block was constantly to be heard from the bar (one of the art components of the space). - Jozef van Rossum, Amsterdam May 1992

The A-side of this album mostly contains compositions that are being played by Breukers himself while on the B-side there are also own compositions but often being played by others. A curious fact is that on the track Mais Non there is a guest contribution by canterbury legend Hugh Hopper, the great bass player of Soft Machine. Still I credited all tracks to Breukers to keep it simple.

The album indeed contains elements of experimental collage, cocktail music, Dutch jazz, a few maybe dated keyboard sounds and even funky notes. Sometimes it kind of hints to what would become known as Nu-Jazz during the nineties, but it also definitely has a lot of cheesy elements. Normally they would bother me a bit too much, but since the whole concept of the album revolves around the theme of muzak, maybe that was the whole point... I'd say: decide for yourself what to make of it! The record is a bit crackly but it was probably published in very limited quantities, I've never seen another copy.

Get it HERE

Yeti - Haw Hawaaaw -1994- (CD, Obi Music), Netherlands

Yeti was a one-off improvisation and free-jazz outfit from The Netherlands founded in 1994. It consisted of Jan Hans Berg on bass and vocals, Martin van Duynhoven on drums (ex-Group 1850, Theo Loevendie Consort etc.), Wolter Wierbos on trombone and American cellist Tristan Honsinger (who has played a lot with Derek Bailey). Basically Yeti brings together again some important figures of the Dutch impro scene and beyond.

The quite lengthy album showcases nice cinematic jazz and improvisation moments that are at times absurdistic as well as loosely inspired by the Nepalese Yeti-myth. It is quite a unique effort that somehow became rather obscure because of the medium through which is was released in its particular time period. The booklet actually shows a nice piece of hand-made DIY-art from the impro scene. Haw Hawaaaw sounds a bit like other things I've posted on the blog before like Ernst Reijseger, because of Honsingers cello-work or even Palinckx & Palinckx.

Another nice slab from the Dutch impro scene of the last decade of the previous century!

Get it HERE



Message:
This is the last post I prepared before I left home some time ago. Expect some new uploads on the blog somewhere later this summer since I am currently travelling around in Europe. The stuff that's coming to the blog later will be truly insane! Also in new directions with an emphasis on the Eastern-European underground from the 80's and 90's.

Minafra, Reijseger, Bennink - Noci...Strani Frutti - Live at Europa Festival Jazz -1991- (CD, Leo Records), Italy/Netherlands

This is a rare CD-only release of a live concert of Italian jazz trumpeter Pino Minafra with Dutch Cellist Ernst Reijseger and Dutch drummer Han Bennink. It took place at Europa Jazz Festival di Noci somewhere in Puglia on the 14th of July, 1990. Because a lot of information is already in the booklet (click on it) I keep it short:

Minafra is an important figure in the Italian free-jazz and avant-garde improvisation scene. In 1990 he founded the Italian Instable Orchestra (IIO) to bring Italian jazz musicians closer together since many of them never played together because of the big distances between the northern and southern part of Italy. Minafra and the IIO can be compared to the Dutch Willem Breuker Kollektief (only less of a constant entity) and were a.o. indeed influenced by the Dutch improvisation and free-jazz scene. Hence this great collaboration with Ernst Reijseger (of whom I have posted other albums on the blog) and legendary impro-drummer, Fluxus artist and ICP Orchestra founder Han Bennink.

A nice slab of European free-jazz! Specially the voice parts.

Get it HERE

Niew Hip Stilen - Grüss Aus Wien & Kill Em All (Live at Pandora's Music Box Festival Rotterdam 1983, VARA Moondogs Radioshow), Netherlands

Niew Hip Stilen is one of my favorite Dutch bands. They came from Rotterdam and played an amazing style of electronic synth wave jazz with some hints towards the urban music culture of early eighties New York City (remember New Order going there which led to the Blue Monday period).  Nevertheless their sound is also very Dutch and akin to the other great electro jazz group from Rotterdam called Kiem.

Niew Hip Stilen consisted of Maarten van Gent – bass, drums, guitar, percussie & vocals; Jan Willem van Mook – bass, sax, keyboards, percussion & computer; Rutger van Otterloo – sax, drums & percussion. They had one self-released single in 1981, which came out on the label of the Quarantaineweg, the legendary artist squats of Rotterdam. On the back of the single a plan of the squats can be noticed. Other bands connected to the squats were a.o. The Black Sheep and Dull Schicksal. Niew Hip Stilen made one album on Eksakt records called Heartsounds and Murmers that still stands as one of the most inventive and interesting Dutch albums from the eighties. 

As for these two songs: this week I found some self-recorded cassettes: blank with handwriting on them. All full concerts of eighties bands that played in Holland. Some of them contain the recordings of the legendary Pandora's Music Box Festival that took place three times in Rotterdam from 83' to 85'. It was a unique festival of new wave, avant-garde and industrial music. You can find a blog dedicated to the festival here. Bands like Fad Gadget, Clock DVA, The Durutti Column, X-Mal Deutschland and SPK all played the first edition. Most of those recordings are available online. Niew Hip Stilen also played and even released a hyperrare cassette with those recordings that was uploaded here.

So as you can see the recordings are actually already available there, but here we have two of the songs in a slightly better sound quality since it was broadcasted by the VARA Moondogs radioshow. Moondogs was a Dutch radioshow from the eighties dedicated to interesting contemporary music with in depth specials around certain bands. Also you can hear the host talking about the band.

Get two rare Niew Hip Stilen live songs HERE
 

Leo Cuypers - Same -1972- (LP, BASF/BIM), Netherlands

Leo Cuypers (Maastricht, 1947) is one of Holland's most inventive and important pianists in the improvisation and Jazz world. He started out as a drummer but soon moved to the piano. As a pianist he developed a unique jazzy playing style by which he improvised many songs just by feeling, mostly in a rhythmic way based on moods and imagined titles. He was frequently playing with Dutch impro Saxophonist Willem Breuker (founder of the Instant Composers Pool and Willem Breuker Kollektief).

Leo Cuypers is probably most famous for his Zeeland Suite from 1977 also with Willem Breuker and others. Throughout the decades of the last century he did many scores and other soundtracks with Willem Breuker. Cuypers was the only person Breuker would trust with his opinion when showing new scores. Their work together keeps a unique place in the Dutch jazz and impro history. On the verge of the nineties Cuypers stopped collaborating with Willem Breuker. By then he had built a decades-long reputation as an impro pianist in a 'jazz world' of women, booze and other nightly endeavours. You can see a short documentary in Dutch with Leo Cuypers here. I love when he basically concludes that he didn't learn shit(!) during his time at the conservatory. This first album he made came out on BASF in The Netherlands, just like the Theo Loevendie Consort (of which Leo Cuypers was a member) as well as the Indonesia inspired experimental Jazz prog band Banten. Also he played on the most psychedelic album by Dutch cult singer Ramses Shaffy from Amsterdam, called Sunset Sunkiss.

From the original 1972 liner notes:

"Maastricht was a beautiful city to live in. People from the Conservatory, the Academy of Arts, painters, sculptors - they all made it a nice scene. But then the hippies from the western part of Holland moved in and things changed so much that many of the artists left." This is pianist Leo Cuypers Talking. Born in Heemstede (near Haarlem) on December 1, 1947 (his parents originally came from Amsterdam) he moved to Maastricht with his family when he was about nine. And he always wanted to study at the Maatricht Conservatory. But after three years he quit; in fact he was chased away after four months of absence. "I was frightened, you know. What was going on there at the time (1962-1965) had nothing to do with making music. One was trained to play one's part in a symphony orchestra - not to play too much out of tune - not to play too well - just to do the job. And nobody was really interested in that kind of music. After lessons the kids ran to their favourite drinking place to listen to pop music, that's what they loved. And besides that, I played jazz, I wanted to become an arranger. I played drums, piano was at first only an obligatory second instrument. I started on drums when I was six. We had a piano at home, but I liked the drums better. It was only when I had learned to play enough piano that I discarded the drums. One day my set was stolen. Or rather, I hoped someone would steal it. Which they did. So I just had to go on with piano. Anyway, at the Maastricht Conservatory the scene finally changed too. Two years after I was chased away I made a guest appearance there."

As for many musicians in this country, the competition that's been held every year since 1958 at the lakeside resort of Loosdrecht meant a big change for Leo Cuypers as well. He entered the 1969 competition, playing solo. It was the percussion element, an echo from his playing the drums. As Maastricht is way down south in holland and the music scene - or anyway the jazz scene - is in the west, by being at Loosdrecht and winning this competition he was heard. Drummer Pierre Courbois liked his playing and when working at the festival of contemporary jazz in Baden-Baden, Germany, he advised Joachim Ernst Berendt to let Leo Cuypers replace Joachim Kühn, who had had a car accident. It was there that Leo Cuypers met composer and reedman Willem Breuker, founder member of the Instant Composers Pool, and it was through Breuker that Leo got his first gig in Amsterdam. Where a little later Theo Loevendie heard him and asked him to play with his consort. So, today, with Misha Mengelberg and Kees Hazevoet, Leo Cuypers is one of the three most foremost pianists in the contemporary music scene. He lives in Amsterdam. - 1972

Get it HERE

Palinckx & Palinckx - Maartse Buien -1984- (LP, Traction Avant), Netherlands

Jacques Palinckx (1959, Tilburg) is a Dutch Jazz and Impro guitarist and composer. He played a.o. with Guus Janssen septet, Maarten Altena Ensemble, Beukorkest, Big Bamboozle and improvised with Free-Jazz and improvisation musicians like Fred van de Hove, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Christian Marclay, Daan Vandewalle, Peter van Bergen, Keith Rowe, Joseph Bowie, Gerry Hemmingway, Eugene Chadbourne.

During the early eighties the impro outfit Palinckx & Palinckx was established with brother Bert Palinckx (Bass), Frank van Oosterhout (Drums) and Hans Sparla (Trombone). This first album came out on the Dutch Traction Avant label, which was a sublabel of Eksakt Records. It was established to showcase the more serious Modern Composed and Jazz side of the label.

Maartse Buien is a Jazz album indeed, even more so Jazz in a very Dutch manner. Maartse Buien is the Dutch name for the typical Dutch rainfall during the month of March (and April). Because of the bad rainy climate of The Netherlands the rainfall during this period is often accompanied by hail and snow, creating different states of water pouring from the sky unexpectedly. The title track on the album reflects the mood during this period quite well, reminding me a lot of Louis Andriessens's Golven (Waves) soundtrack which is about the Dutch North Sea. It also hints a bit towards music on the Belgian Igloo label. Palinckx was included on this compilation I posted before.

The entire album consists of jazz that transcends into more experimental improvisational stuff, almost creating cinematographic pieces. Some of the pieces are quite beautiful. The improvisation scene of The Netherlands always merges trained classical and jazz music, with distinct Dutch melodies and anarchic improvisation (examples could be: Instant Composers Pool, The Ex, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Nine Tobs, Willem Breuker etc etc).

Although March is not here yet... it will come in a blink of an eye. We are bracing ourselves here in Holland!

Get it HERE

Theo Loevendie Consort - Chess! -1972- (LP, BASF), Netherlands

This record is most likely the first real jazz album I've put on the blog so far, but it's a real classic in its genre. Theo Loevendie is a Dutch jazz clarinetist and composer and has been one of the key figures in Dutch jazz and improvisation since the sixties. In the early seventies Loevendie created two albums under the name Theo Loevendie Consort: Chess and Mandela (both have been reissued on a CD which is also out of print).

The Theo Loevendie Consort is basically a Dutch supergroup of jazz and impro musicians. The group consisted of trombonist Willem van Manen, icon of Dutch jazz: saxophonist Hans Dulfer, bass clarinet wizard Harry Sparnaay (to be found on this blog), pianist Leo Cuypers, bass player Arjen Gorter, saxophonist Leo van Oostrom and drummer Martin van Duynhoven (who was also in Group 1850, one of the best psychedelic Dutch bands from the sixties and seventies). You can find all these musicians on countless albums over at Inconstant Sol, as well as more Loevendie stuff.

Chess! is an important album in the Dutch (free)jazz realm, but to my personal taste not the best effort you'd expect from a supergroup like this. I suppose it was hard for them to find the right balance between their melody foundations and free jazz outburst and the space everyone had within that division. But then again maybe that's exactly what they tried to do according to the liner notes, namely:  "Anthitheses, depicting a fight between worn-out traditions and the modern improvisation approach". For example the first piece chess is a nice combination of a simple happy melody and free jazz. The piece brasilia combines a Brazilian-like melody with chaotic saxophone bursts. All in all the whole is a cool example of Dutch free jazz and does grasp the groovy spirit of that particular time in Holland. Maybe it's just that one has too high expectations being confronted with a supergroup of this degree.

Get it HERE

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

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

Misha Mengelberg - Pech Onderweg -1978- (LP, BVHaast 016), Netherlands

Misha Mengelberg is a Ukranian born renowned Dutch pianist, composer and Fluxus artist. He is one of the key figures in  Dutch improvisation music and free-jazz. He founded the ICP (Instant Composers Pool) Orchestra together with Dutch jazz musicians Willem Breuker and Han Bennink. Mengelberg has played with all of the important impro musicians of the world like Steve Lacy, Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton and many more. He has been featured on hundreds of recordings.

Pech Onderweg, Trouble on The Road (actually trouble on the way) is a solo album of Mengelberg which came out on Willem Breuker's BVHaast label. This label became one of the key labels for Dutch jazz and impro music during the seventies and eighties. This is a very nice solo endeavour showing his improvisational skills and absurd humor in the titles of the songs.The ICP and BVHaast legacy might uncover the very essense of the good side to being Dutch. You can watch the ICP video below to get an idea. And Misha Mengelberg is starring in it.

Get Pech Onderweg HERE