Simon Vinkenoog - Liefhebben, Zien en Proeven (Poezie en Muziek) -1966- (LP, Sigma Relax), Netherlands

             Merry Christmas and an Archaic New Year to all followers and friends of the blog! 

This record (which is rare as hen's teeth) is one of the most important documents of the Dutch countercultural psychedelic movement of the sixties. 

Simon Vinkenoog (18 July 1928 – 12 July 2009) was a Dutch author, poet, elocutionist and pioneer of the psychedelic revolution of the last century. He published his first poems around 1950 and kept working his way into the Dutch literary world from the fifties on. In 1959 he willingly tried LSD under medical supervision and later became a protagonist in the world of mind-altering substances, Dutch literature, happenings, free music and advocated for a world in which people lived in astonishment of the universe we belong to and the richness of culture and nature on planet earth. Because his early involvement in the counter culture combined with his literary career, Simon Vinkenoog can be seen as a European example of the Beat Generation. In 1966 he hosted an iconic poetry manifestation in the Royal theatre Carré showcasing a new generation of fresh poets in the Netherlands. If you understand German, check Simon Vinkenoog out in this panel on LSD and Gegenkultur in Europe in the sixties.

William S. Burroughs with Simon Vinkenoog

In 1968 Vinkenoog took part in the making of the mythical album Woorden (words) together with two other Dutch poets where free form music was combined with poetry. The album was only distributed through literary book stores and the first ´coffeeshops´ of Amsterdam, back when those places where not yet polluted with mass tourism and irresponsible behaviour. In that time Amsterdam was an important international centre of free-thinkers, alternative gatherers and hippies comparable to San Francisco in the US. It's ironic that Amsterdam is often perceived as a freedom city because of the endeavours of sixties and seventies and that now almost nothing relates to those values anymore. The Woorden record is seen by many as one of the most striking examples of the Dutch hippie-movement and spaced out sixties. Also it's one of the most rare albums on the legendary NWW-List. 

Anyway, this even rarer record here dates from before Woorden. Liefhebben, zien en proeven (meaining: To love, see and taste) is from 1966 and in record collecting circles often regarded as a literary album. But as the back of the record reveals, this is not just spoken word. The album was recorded on the 30th of December 1966 (literally 50 years ago!) in the in Dutch Royal Tropical Insitute and contains sitars, tabla's, gamelan gongs, indonesian flutes, indian bells etc. It's interesting how the interest in cultures and ethnic instruments of these crazy dope smoking youngsters was still regarded within an anthropological frame. The Tropical Institute was probably delighted that young people wanted to explore their colonial possessions and dig into exotic cultures. 

I know most of you will not understand a word from this album, but hopefully you can appreciate it with the given context. The poems are about life, death, rebirth, love, human potential and much much more. One of the poems is about DMT (in 1966 already.. man). I think I saw him one time in my life during a demonstration at the Dam square of Amsterdam on a stage speaking against the ban of magic mushrooms in Netherlands. Vinkenoog did millions of things in his lifetime: he wrote numerous poems, many novels and also frequently wrote on so called 'pseudo-scientific' topics in various magazines. It's important to note that Vinkenoog is not just some hippie-poet, he is ranked amongst all the important writers of the Dutch literature too. 

He made two albums with Spinvis (the Dutch Beck?) in the 00's which were his last musical recordings. In the video below I included scans from a little sixties underground book that Vinkenoog compiled. It was called Moksha, a timebook for the alteration of consciousness and drugs. Simon Vinkenoog, a very inspiring person and icon of the Dutch counter-culture. From the liner notes:

I wish that the human heart would beat faster. I wish that I could tell everyone everything I know at once: how the battle between light and dark is won by the light. I wish that people carried the sun with them. I wish that cheerful light would shine from all houses. I wish so many things, I still want so much: peace, peace, peace. I can't say it differently than with words: I don't want to persuade, convince or entice - I Just want you to listen, so you can find your own answers. Listen. And also stop the record, so you can listen to yourself! Have a good trip!

Get it HERE

Robert Barry - Otherwise -1981- (LP, Van Abbemuseum), US/Netherlands

This record came out for the occassion of an exhibition in the Dutch Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Van Abbemuseum is a museum for modern and contemporary art with quite a special modern art collection for Dutch standards. Robert Barry's conceptual LP came with a booklet written by two former directors of the museum: Rudi Fuchs and Jan Debbaut. From the liner notes:

Robert Barry (1936, New York) belongs to the first generation of 'conceptual' artists, together with a.o. Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth and Douglas Huebler; starting from a fundamental new art-concept, they changed with their activities around gallery-onwer Seth Siegelaub the international art-world at the end of the sixties drastically. [...] Amongst the conceptual artists who worked more in particular with language, Robert Barry occupies an important position on the borderline of visual art, poetry and philosophy. Conceptual art is - more than formal revolutions in modern art - a fundamental re-thinking of the function of art and the artist in a changing cultural context; it is in the defining of this new attitude towards art that the ideas and works of Barry make an essential contribution. 

Otherwise is a minimalist conceptual art project in which associative words are being recited. The record was also included in the famous book Broken Music (after the Milan Knížák record) gathering artist records in a catalogue overview. I suppose that you can also just use this record if you have trouble falling asleep. Just put it on, listen and drift away. Scans of the booklet are included (Dutch and English).

Get it HERE

Frits Maats & Nico van der Sman - Beweging -1982- (Tape), Netherlands

Quite some noise this post: Dutch artists Frits Maats & Nico van der Sman made this cassette called Movement (Beweging) which was actually an art project created in the Dutch village of Roden. The sounds you hear were recorded in a milk factory which was later dismantled. Then the sounds were played again in the empty factory and recorded which resulted in this tape. You can hear quite obviously that something conceptual is going on.

Frits Maats is an artist that explores the relation between fine arts and media, but also sculpture and music. He made a lot of video art during the eighties and also collaborated with Brian Eno. He is co-founder of the Amsterdam based interdisciplinary art and research centre Mediamatic. Mediamatic is a cultural institution dedicated to new developments in the arts since 1983. They organize lectures, workshops and art projects, focusing on nature, biotechnology and BioArt in a strong international network.

Get it HERE
 

Pierre Courbois, Edgar M. Böhlke, Oskar Gottlieb Blarr - Free Music & Orgel -1969- (LP, Schwann AMS Studio), Germany/Holland

This record is linked to many other posts on the blog. Free Music & Orgel was a freeform endeavour to combine Christian church music with avant-garde, free-jazz and 'beat' music. The main composer behind it was the Dutch Pierre Courbois (to be found on the blog). Together with German organist Oskar Gottlieb Blarr, German narrator Edgar M. Böhlke, Dutch trumpetist Boy Raaymakers, Dutch sax player Peter van de Locht and Ferdi Rikkers on double bass a spontaneous project was recorded on October 13th and 14th, 1968 at Melanchthon-Kirche Düsseldorf and at Grote Kerk Arnhem.

This album showcases how the church tried to find new ways of connecting to the youth that was more and more being submerged in hippieness in the late sixties. An important figure in this German wave of the Christian krautrock-beat-mass genre was Nicaraguan priest-poet Ernesto Cardenal. His poems were also used on this album. Cardenal related things like the cosmic unity of the universe to Christ to use the hippie discourse for a Christian message, although politics are also important in this case.

The Christian Schwann label was quite adventurous with its releases. It also published the first two legendary Kluster albums. Somehow redemption was thought to be found in the experience of the free and abstract. But also in the popular culture, like Cardenals poem tells on this album: praise the lord of the milky ways and space between the milky ways with violins, with flutes and saxophone, praise him with blues and jazz, praise him with record players etc.

Musically I find this an amazing album where a sound reminiscent of Italian library music in the vein of Il Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza meets jazz, poetry and dark psychedelic sounds. It also comes close to the Risonanze series which I published before. It is almost a Christian take on the Dutch hyperrare cult psychedelic beat poetry album Woorden. I actually find the balance between the church organ and the church bells with the other instruments really impressive. Much more could be said about this album because it has so many implications and so many different musicians, but I'll keep the rest to you.

Highly Recommended!

Get it HERE

Software - Men Without Clothes -1981- (Tape, Bugle Records), UK

So apparently some really rare cassettes are being handled with museum prices. Sometimes it makes you think that they must be the most interesting ever or contain that secret gem which would wipe out anyone's music collection. I know maybe ten copies of them exist... but we stick to the DIY ethics through which it was created and no, we don't drive these prices through the roof.

Software were an excellent UK experimental minimal synth group belonging to the UK DIY cassette culture. They released this one album on the Bugle Records label which a.o. published the music of The Astronauts. It was one of the many iconic labels pushing the authentic post-punk sound from early eighties Britain. I could name numerous UK post-punk or minimal synth labels from the time, but we all know where to place this music. This is some great stuff.

Men Without Clothes showcases great inventiveness of synthesizer manoeuvres sometimes reminding me of Vice Versa, The Gadgets or more primitive Legendary Pink Dots. The typical cynical empty yet humoristic post-punk is combined with more synthetic dance tracks and primitive DIY guitar usage. A truly authentic example of the English synth underground in its prime in 1981. Does this need a reissue? Yes. 

Finally some more very rare Minimal Synth music from oblivion!

Get it HERE

Guus Janssen - Tast Toe -1981- (LP, Claxon), Netherlands

A year ago I posted an album by Dutch improvisation pianist Guus Janssen on the blog and here is a second one: Janssen is a frequent member of the Instant Composers Pool and the key figure in Dutch piano improvisation. He always breaks down different genres into an unclassifiable mixture. He plays jazz, classical music, circus-melodies, pop, but never really ends up in either one of these genres.

Tast Toe, meaning something like help yourself (it also refers to hitting the keys of a piano in a weird linguistic way) is another album in which Janssen rapidly creates his accessible impro tunes while dissecting free-jazz into carnival melodies while entering chamber music realms while simultaneously staying on all borders. I guess it's only to be noticed when giving this a more proper listen, because at first glance it's a bit of conventional piano play. Nevertheless this is another interesting piece of the Amsterdam based Claxon records puzzle. Claxon was one of the best Dutch labels for improvisation music active at the end of the seventies and the eighties. All these pieces were recorded live in Amsterdam in 1981.

Get it HERE

Vinterhjärta - Same -1987- (Cassette, Multimood), Sweden

Vinterhjärta, meaning Winter Heart, was an obscure impressionist prog outfit from Sweden that consisted of Peter Bryngelsson, Dan Jonsson and Lars Liljegren. Although summer is still here, maybe we can engage in these winter soundscapes in a less frustrated way than when winter is actually in full effect later on (at least here in Europe). I guess the Swedes aren't bad in translating these particular environmental circumstances into musical moods. I'm sure the outfit was actually inspired by the season of winter.

Vinterhjärta plays moodish pieces in which progressive rock elements, ambient sounds and gentle piano play is intertwined. The A-side is a 38 minute long track in which synthesizers and guitar create a dreamy world reminiscent of the more mellow releases of the French Pôle label in the seventies or of cosmic Heldon guitarist Alain Renaud. It is maybe improvised in a bit too conventional cheesy manner, but it still takes you into a certain world, because it doesn't change drastically or builds up towards more energetic heights or anything. It's an impressionist prog piece that's gets specially interesting when the synthesizers are more apparent.

The B-side has eight different shorter pieces, usually created with piano and synths shaping different moods and atmospheres. The pieces are gentle, spooky and dreamy at same time. It reminds me a bit the Dutch soundtrack made by Louis Andriessen named Golven (connected to the Dutch Noordzee) or Scandinavian ECM releases if they contained a bit more of the darkness from the eighties with electric guitar disturbance. All in all it's a beautiful and peaceful album from Sweden's eighties and fits in the current interest in more ambient musical works from the eighties.

Get it HERE



The blog had a bit of a hiatus lately because I was out of town and I was pretty busy. Sometimes there will be periods in which it's harder to keep up the consistency. Nevertheless some of the best posts are still to come. I've got quite some insane material for the near future!