Continuing their incredible initiative attending to the output of Dutch ambient pioneer, Enno Velthuys, Dead Minds returns with two more first-ever reissues from his catalog; his 1982 debut, “Ontmoeting”, and his 1985 “Landscapes In Thin Air”, as well as a much needed repress of their reissue of 1987’s “Different Places” from last year. Visionary excursions into left-field, bedroom synthesis that remain truly striking four decades on, each is a crucial missing link of 80s ambient music and the Dutch underground.

Back in 2021, the Netherlands based imprint, Dead Minds, dropped the first ever vinyl reissue of Enno Velthuys’ legendary 1984 cassette “Glimpse of Light”. Beginning a dedicated initiative to the Dutch ambient pioneer’s long unavailable body of work, this was followed by a reissue of his astounding 1987 album “Different Places” last year. Now they’re back with the first ever vinyl reissues of the remaining two albums in his incredible catalog of releases, his 1982 debut release, “Ontmoeting”, and his 1985 cassette “Landscapes In Thin Air”. Both originally issued in tiny editions on Kubus Kassettes and out of print for nearly the entire time since, each is a towering grail of the 1980s DIY ambient scene. Each is absolutely incredible and takes huge strides toward elevating one of the great unsung figures of the 80s underground to the historical position he rightly deserves.

Enno Velthuys, who sadly passed away in 2009, remains a sinfully overlooked figure in the history of ambient music. Initially a member of the Dutch 1960s psychedelic scene, he fell prey to the mental scars of heavy drug use and spent the majority of his years as a recluse, living with his mother while producing astounding bedroom music that almost no one ever heard. Had he not been discovered by the seminal Fluxus artist, Willem de Ridder, in 1980 - resulting in the release of “Ontmoeting”, his debut album - it’s likely that the story would have ended there.

“Ontmoeting” (Encounter) - issued by Kubus Kassettes in 1982 - is the first of a series of cassettes that Velthuys issued across the length of the 1980s. It was the result of an instruction to Rob Smit of Kubus Kassettes, who visited the artist and proposed the release of a cassette. Velthuys, being open to the idea, gave Smit access to his tape archive of recorded tracks to cherry pick his favorite pieces, resulting in the album that would become his debut release.

Comprising ten untitled tracks, despite the fact that Velthuys intimately felt that Smit’s selections didn’t capture the breadth of his broader musical spectrum - omitting a number of rhythmic guitar pieces - “Ontmoeting” displays a fairly broad range of material, and certainly offered the artist a sense of direction that would unfold across his subsequent releases. Intertwining spacious ambient gestures and synth-laden left-field gestures, it is a searching album, encountering an artist coming into his own with touchstones in 8-bit soundtracks, the Berlin School, and the new age movement, that culminates to produce a remarkably strangely surreal and cinematic feel.

Unquestionably a pivotal ambient release from the early 80’s, Enno Velthuys’ “Ontmoeting” is an absolute gem that’s a must for any fan of ambient, new age, and DIY cassette culture at large.

“Landscapes In Thin Air”, Velthuys’ third album, was issued in 1985 and encountered him returning to Kubus Kassettes, after having released “Glimpse of Light” on Exart, the label founded by Hessel Veldman and Nick Nicole that brought us those seminal Y Create releases. Where its predecessor had offered an immersion into meditative expanses of ambience and deconstructed melody, “Landscapes In Thin Air” takes a subtly different path, channeling a slightly stronger presence of rhythm and a more explicitly melodic use of synthesizers.

A bedroom, DIY time capsule of its era - perfectly capturing the temperaments and moods of the mid 80s - Landscapes In Thin Air comprises 10 sketches that embody a cinematic quality within their pensive and shadowy moods. Embracing themes of nature, watery landscapes, and birds, slowly evolving synth lines met with subtle rhythms and dreamy, fluctuating drones feel as though they pursue a state of inward calm to soothe the composer’s often troubled and complex mind.

Balanced between the majestic and profoundly intimate, Velthuys’ “Landscapes In Thin Air” is drenched in beauty, and unveils a composer of depth and meticulous control unfurling an evolving world of metaphorical meaning.

“Different Places” is the second of Velthuys’ albums, after “Glimpse of Light”, to appear on Exart. Originally released in 1987, it is also his last album before disappearing into obscurity, a consequence of declining mental health and disillusionment with the underground cassette network. While belonging to the same rough universe of new age, ambient music as its predecessors, Velthuys’ final statement - regarded by many as his definitive statement and most coherent work - features slightly more playful and ambitious components, as well as a cleaner sound produced by the artist’s perfectionist temperaments, and his constant upgrading of equipment.

Imbued with shades of Erik Satie, John Carpenter, and Hiroshi Yoshimura, “Different Places” plays like an immersion into the cosmic universe of a singular mind, slowly losing itself in spacious melancholy. As dark clouds hover, threads of hope shine through in the form of slow-moving melodies that pulse and drift amongst shifting long tones, shimmering harmonics, and sprawling ambiances, compelling the ear to become lost in the dynamic abstractions of one of the great, unheralded statements of 1980s ambient and New Age music.

Overflowing with experimentation and artistic accomplishment, Dead Minds’ first ever reissue of Enno Velthuys’ “Different Places” is one of those revelations that rewrites the history we know.