Paul A.R. Timmermans

Fascinating collection of Minimal Sound-Art / Musique Concrète works by the obscure Belgian artist Paul A.R. Timmermans, privately issued in 1983 - with the aid & additional insight of his neighbor & friend Badouin Oosterlynck - in a perfectly minimal edition: a lead slug embedded with the artist's name is clamped onto the top left of an otherwise blank LP sleeve, with only a text-insert in four languages either affixed or inside. Containing four pieces composed between 1980 & 1982 of a very peculiar / particular strain of almost ritualistic practice & execution, this is one of the more beguiling & individualistic entrants into the C.P. canon - comparisons can be drawn to the sound-world / palette of the recent C.P. of the Igloo title by Henry Krutzen, "Silances," similarly the blinders-on work of more contemporary travelers such as Raymond Dijkstra & Timo "Af Ursin" Van Luijk - but none of these come close to the levels of pure second-guess-ery you'll have to endure to get to the root of the methods employed herein. The sound-world here is a creaking, metallic landscape full of rusty cymbals and leaking faucets; the first piece, Meta (1980) goes for a whole side on just a beep and what sounds like a pair of castanets or finger cymbals being gently rubbed - it's an incredibly transfixing listen that never outstays its welcome. Parameterspel (1980) works the same single-drip schematic of parts of Knud Viktor's "Images;" Klokken (1982) subtly explores pitched-down wind-chimes & their resultant residual echoes over another 20+ minute exercise, segueing into Oertaal (1981) 's intimately spit Sound Poetry.