At last, a long overdue repress of Af Ursin's 2012 LP “Trois Mémoires Discrètes”. The album's three works, recorded by Timo van Luijk between 2010 and 2012, are stunning immersions in elegant long tones and spatial ambiance that capture one of the most fascinating artists in contemporary experimental music at his absolute best.

Founded in 2000 by Timo van Luijk, focused on issuing the work of the rich scene of artists around him, over the last two decades La Scie Dorée has assembled an entirely unique context of experimental sound, issuing releases by Elodie, Lumine, La Poupée Vivante, and numerous others. Running like a spine through the label’s catalog is van Luijk’s own work, both collaborative and under his Af Ursin moniker. Their latest, “Trois Mémoires Discrètes” unearths a body of work created by the Finland born, Belgium based artist between 2010 and 2012. Built from moody ambiences, glacially paced harmonies, and bristling textures, it’s a deeply affecting immersion in sonority that might just be our favorite release by Af Ursin.

Timo Van Luijk first came to note during the early 90’s as a member of Noise-Maker's Fifes in Belgium, before embarking on a strikingly singular creative journey in sound, creating a sprawling body of recordings of solo efforts under Af Ursin - a project focused on structured improvisation, combining electronic and acoustic instrumentation - and constrained collaborative works with a rotating cast of artists, including Raymond Dijkstra, Kris Vanderstraeten, Christoph Heemann, and Chalk, among others, resting at the boundaries of electronic, electroacoustic, improvised, ambient, and folk musics.

Trois Mémoires Discrètes is the fifth full length by Af Ursin. Performed, recorded and mixed by Timo van Luijk during 2010-2012, it briefly appeared in 2012, before falling out of print for the decade since. A departure from the electronic territories that the project has embraced over its twenty-year run, the album comprises three introspective instrumental compositions for English horn, flute, percussion, double bass, and Hammond organ. The outcome - producing immersive expanses that delicately intertwine spatial ambience, harmony, and texture - is absolutely stunning. There’s little doubt that van Luijk’s mastery of acoustic instruments and their possibilities rivals his facility in synthesis and concrete.

Each of Trois Mémoires Discrètes’ three works flirts on the outer reaches of drone, deconstructing melody, harmony, and dissonance via a duration, pace, and an elasticated sense of time. Long tones dance and collide, often feeling like fog horns conversing from within banks of mist, as whispers of instrumental interventions and environmental field recordings dance between the distance and foreground, weaving meditative spaces within extended passages of moody inward reflection.

An album of understated elegance that sneaks up on you and won’t let go. Ten years on, it feels as fresh, relevant, and striking as the day it first appeared.