the submersible dirigible

After a two month wait, Dutchman Wouter Van Veldhoven’s latest ambient release finally arrived on my doorstep.  Considering the monumental delay, I have to assume the simple square six-inch cardboard package’s journey from Eat This Media’s Dutch offices to The Submersible Dirigible’s NYC-based corporate towers was a laborous one, apparently traveling over land by crab-walk, and over the Atlantic by paddleboat.  Fortunately, Wouter’s latest record turned out to be a soothing remedy for injustice, allowing me to quickly forgive the collaborative failure of the Dutch and American mail-carriers.

wouter van veldhoden, tim hecker, william basinski, colleen — tracklist.txt

With only a handful of previous releases — I assume Wouter’s work hasn’t yet captured the eye of most ambient music fans.  Considering Wouter’s Four Simple Songs alongside his earlier, far-too-limited Ruststukken (Slaapwell, 2007), it seems likely he’ll soon be to mentioned alongside the best established work from our era’s biggest contemporary-minimalist super-celebrities.  Stylistically, Wouter’s brittle tape-fueled ambient arrangements feel inspired primarily by William Basinski’s own melancholy, high-altitude tape-glaciers.  “Second Simple Song” (see podcast) makes the most convincing case for Basinski’s influence on the record; the track’s leaky organs and inky rythms are drenched in a shrill, pervasive electrostatic leaking from the track’s warmer, ailing melodies.  Decay and crafted interference burden the more emotive instrumentation like a wet blanket, familiar from comparable Basinski releases like The Disintegration Loops (2062, 2002/2003) or Variations for Piano & Tape (2062, 2006).

Colorful Fisher-Price melodies, gleaming synthetics, and sunny acoustics — unfamiliar elements on most Basinski recordings — also make Tim Hecker, Keith Fullerton Whitman or Svarte Greiner obvious reference points.  “Third Simple Song” shifts from the melancholy towards sunnier textures with help from these brighter elements.  Colleen’s seems a more fitting comparison at these times, especially Ms. Schott’s early electronic-inspired recordings like The Golden Morning Breaks (Leaf, 2005) or Everyone Alive Wants Answers (Leaf, 2003).  Ruststukken’s closer, “Stukke Rust,” indicated Wouter’s music was capable of maneuvering outside from the Basinski/KFM/S.Greiner ambient branch, and towards the Colleen/Amiina wing, focusing on lush acoustics with arrangements influenced by glitchy electronic music.  While Four Simple Songs is closer to a continuation of Ruststukken’s Basinskier “Stoffig Stuk”, Wouter still proves perfectly capable of dabbling in these sunnier pastures.  While I certainly look forward to the sort of textural variety approached by tracks like “Stukke Rust” and “Third Simple Song”, Four Simple Songs for Five Dead Bumblebees is still a really gorgeous piece of work, well worth suffering oppressive Euro conversion rates and tediously long shipping times to hear in full.

With Ruststukken long OOP, Wouter fans might also try to track down his collaborative release (with Machinefabriek and Mariska Barrs), Zeeg, out recently on Digitalis Arts & Crafts.

Wouter’s work is available streaming, in full, at last.fm.

Four Simple Songs

Ruststukken

Wouter van Veldhoven – muziek oorspronkelijk bedoeld voor 2 piano’s

Wouter van Veldhoven – Kaspar

finally, this is rather nice:

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