★Aspen Edities
dissolution of the other
Tip! Banjo and woodblocks are the scarce ingredients of Poor Isa's second album, ‘dissolution of the other’. The instruments can be used not only in their usual form, but in alternative tunings, with preparations and additional attributes. This creates an otherworldly vacuum, rich in silence and shadow, with sounds that seem equally familiar as mystical. The music is broken up from its classical form and sounds like an instrumental eld recording or a musical ceremony. In contrast to the rst al…
Strumento di Etimo Incerto
The singular Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach, a long-time member of paradigm-shifting experimental ensembles like Huntsville and Dans les arbes, delivers his eighth solo recording, and his first on the superb Belgian imprint Aspen Edities. The percussionist digs even deeper into his sonic research, transforming a massive bass drum used in orchestral music, as a resonant surface for otherworldly, texture-rich excursions that mix-and-match rhythm and color in ever-shifting combinations.
Variations (LP)
* 250 copies, hand numbered * On Nils Vermeulen’s first solo album, the sound of the double bass is the main variable. Recorded at the empty Ghent Opera, where every note, attack and vibration comes through, including the creaking of the wooden floor. There is no hiding in reverb, nor in easy playing. The strings Vermeulen uses on this recording (‘Tempera’ strings by Gerold Genssler), are inspired by traditional gut strings, and have lower tension to let the instrument resonate freely. The pie…
light as never
The distinctive sound of Linus is born from a delicate balance between folk, jazz, minimalism, chamber music and free improvisation. Starting as a duo, Ruben Machtelinckx and Thomas Jillings have always tried to infuse their compositions, which tend towards poetry and simplicity, with the ungraspable spirit of true open-minded improvisation. In the search of new stories to tell, it therefore did not come as a surprise that they chose to expand their palette by including both an eclectic mix of i…
Als Ik Niets Meer Van De Kano Zie
*Limited Edition of 100 hand-numbered copies.* Improvisation is a universal non-verbal language. For many of us it is a practice, not a music genre, one that knows no boundaries. Personally I’m really interested in the locality of an improvisational recording. I find it much more intriguing to listen to someone who improvises and lives outside of the big hubs for free jazz and free improv of the western world. It might seem trivial to many of you, but the fact that the titles and bandcamp notes …
A Short Story
For almost ten years, Ruben Machtelinckx has followed an extraordinary path in Belgian and European improvised music. As a guitarist, but equally as a composer. It began in 2013, when the quartet Machtelinckx/Badenhorst/Jensson/Wouters released their debut, ‘Faerge’. The album was praised by international press and was listed ‘Best Belgian jazz release’ by Knack magazine. In 2020 he won the Klara Award for Best Belgian Jazz release for his latest record: Porous Structures (Aspen 009). In between…
Sonic Gnostic
A truly stunning piece of work, Aspen Edities’ latest - Eyvind Kang’s “Sonic Gnostic” - radically bridges the worlds of minimal composition, rigorous experimentation, and improvised forms, in ways that locks Kang in the mind as one of America’s most original thinkers in the contemporary landscape of sound.
Ka:mos
Kɑːmos is the duo of Aino Peltomaa and Nathan Wouters. Aino Peltomaa (FIN) is a vocalist with a radiating sound. She performs widely with medieval, renaissance and contemporary music. In 2018, she directed and performed Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard von Bingen with the Finnish Kaari Ensemble. This medieval, mystic nun keeps on intriguing: her songs are also part of Aino’s project Harmony of the Spheres and her words are sometimes used in the lyrics of Kɑːmos.Nathan Wouters (BE) plays the bass as if…
Porous Structures
**250 copies** Ruben Machtelinckx has a new quartet. It is not a coincidence that the guitar is central, in particular the steel-string with its typical western sound. 2019 was a fruitful year for Ruben Machtelinckx (BE). This project is the last part of a triptych: in the spring Poor Isa, his duo with Frederik Leroux, released its debut album; in the summer he came out with the cassette Sualme with field recordings, improvisations and compositions; the winter appears to be the proper season for…
Let's Drink the Sea and Dance
Aspen Edities introduces a new duo project by guitar brothers Frederik Leroux and Ruben Machtelinckx in which banjo and woodblocks share the main part. The duo has already collaborated in the past (... Aspen 007, When The Shade Is Stretched, one of our favourite picks of 2018...) and this time they came up with a new name to officially baptize their project, Poor Isa. It looks like the latest Aspen Edities releases share an inspiration for the deep blue and Let's Drink the Sea and Dance makes no…
Sea Legs / Hum Back
**300 copies** Belgian label Aspes Edities brings us an interesting split album by American multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ali Ismaily - who has played for Tom Waits, Ceramic Dog and Laurie Anderson - and Belgian euphonium player and improviser Niels Van Heertum, who is having his second release on the label. The deep blue is the common denominator on this LP. On the first side - entitled Sea Legs - Ismaily offers one long and sparse composition that prominently features guitar and banjo, but als…
Almadies
**200 copies** An evening in 1995. In a quiet house in Dakar, one guitarist pushes an acoustic guitar in the hands of another. It was a small Eastern European instrument with special nylon strings, bought for little money in a Brussels music store. Pierre Van Dormael had purchased several before traveling to Senegal, for his students at the Conservatory of Dakar. The other musician: Karl Van Deun. He spent his vacation in West-Africa, with his comrade and teacher. During one of those clammy Afri…
Zonder Webben
After years of scheming indoors, the duo Leroux + Vanderstraeten now presents its first album: ‘Zonder Webben’. The sounds speak for themselves and develop in an unconventional way. The improvisations are gossamered at times, and on other occasions they are closely interwoven by different elements that happen at the same time and without hierarchy. This album maintains the spontaneity of the moment - the duo always starts from a blank canvas - however without being isolated from the environment…
When The Shade Is Stretched
A split album is a marriage of autonomous partners. On each side of the vinyl, one artist presents a limited selection of music. Both sides relate to each other, but they do not intertwine. On Aspen’s first split, guitar brothers Ruben Machtelinckx and Frederik Leroux each contribute twenty minutes of solo performance. Both Machtelinckx and Leroux make use of the oating sounds of the banjo, but in a quite distinct way. While the former presents a determined and solid selection of music, the latt…
Evergreen
Belgian euphonium player Niels Van Heertum leads the acoustic quartet Veder. After the minimalism of his solo album JK's Kamer +50.92509° +03.84800° (on Smeraldina-Rima)—on which he also played tuba, trumpet & electronics—Van Heertum turns to the sort of chamber jazz played on his previous collaborations with guitarist Ruben Machtelinckx. Felt like old folk (Smeraldina Rima, 2015) and especially mono no aware (Aspen Edities, 2017) presented him as part of an acoustic, often improvisational ensem…
Mono No Aware
The first release on the new Belgian label Aspen, mono no aware is clearly the product of a carefully refined aesthetic. From the Cy Twombly-like cover art provided by Ante Timmermans to the peculiar lineup listed on the back — among other instruments listed are baritone guitar, banjo, alto clarinet, hardanger fiddle and euphonium — it is evident before one even hears the album that this is going to be a unique and thoughtful experience. Mono no aware (pronounced: moh-noh noh ah-wah-ray) is a …