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Roel Meelkop - 1003 Roel Meelkop Oude Koeien

from The Sound Of Herbal by Digital Daylight Distribution

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Collage from 1003 Roel Meelkop:::: Oude Koeien

herbalinternational.blogspot.com/2009/10/xxxx-roel-meelkop-old-cows-from-ditch.html

Tracklist:
1 Erstes Stück Im Alten Stil, 10", Korg Platsics, 1998
2 Echt Dood, track on CD, Herbal , 2010
3 2 (Jos Smolders), 5" lathe cut, 2002
4 1 (Riktigt Död), 7", 1999
5 1 (Veramente Morto), 7", 1998
6 Zweites Stück Im Alten Stil, 10", Korg Platsics, 1998
7 2 (Beequeens), 7" (Limited edition with Beequeens LP Ownliness on MOLOKO+), 2002
8 Drittes Stück Im Alten Stil, 10", Korg Platsics, 1998

Almost all tracks on this disc have been released on vinyl by Korm Plastics, except where noted in brackets. My gratitude goes out to Frans de Waard for his continuing support for my work and his unwavering commitment to the music that we all love so much.
Roel Meelkop, 2010.

lyrics

Koken Met Sneeuw
No doubt it is sheer coincidence that the release of this CD coincides with the 25th year of Korm Plastics existence. When I started the label, I had no clear idea of what its aim should be. No doubt if you would have asked me back then, I would have said: to release good music. Maybe if you would ask me today I would give the same answer. What motivation should one need to run a record label? Change the world, save the environment, fight for your rights? I never comprehensively studied the various social and political backgrounds of everybody whose music I released and I never will either, but no doubt the vast majority of them does not have a strong political idea or social motivation behind whatever they do in music. Sit back and listen. Roel Meelkop's installation at the first sound art exhibition he organised in 1998, 'just about now', summed this up perfectly: two speakers, a couch, a vase with flowers and an ashtray. Sit back and listen. And maybe most of all: enjoy!
I think I first met Roel in 1986, when we were preparing a concert of his band THU20, my band Kapotte Muziek and the odd loner Odal. Bumping into each other after that, at concerts usually, grew steadily into a friendship. When Mailcop became Meelkop, following a hiatus of some years of non-recording (mainly out of lack of good equipment), Roel returned with a great CD for Trente Oiseaux, to be followed by more great works. I invited him to do a 10" in the Korg Plastics series of music solely made with Korg machines. It was the third and final episode in the series, and the most 'composed' one. Later on he asked me wether he could release a series of 7"s, in which each new 7" was a rework (recycle remix) of the previous one, but for whatever reason now forgotten, it became only a series of two. The final record on Korm Plastics displayed his interest in concepts: taking Jos Smolders' 'Music For CD Player' as the starting point, he recorded two pieces of 99 seconds each (analog to the 99 tracks on the CD) which was pressed on a 5" lathe cut (the size of a CD) with silver foil in the middle (again like a CD, but made as a picture disc). A small work of art. Four great records and because of the fragile character of the music, it deserves to be released on CD. Another fine mark of quality and a great 25th anniversary item.
Frans de Waard, 17-XI-2009

credits

from The Sound Of Herbal, releases May 19, 2037
Further Noise
Roel Meelkop was one of the founding members of the Dutch electroacoustic group THU20 in the mid-1980s, and he continues to work with Frans de Waard in the latter's long-term projects Kapotte Muziek, Goem, and Zèbra. Meelkop's first solo release, 9 (Holes in the Head), was released on Bernhard Günter's Trente Oiseaux label in 1996, and since then his albums have appeared on an A-list of boutique electronic labels, including Intransitive, Line, Staalplaat, and Non Visual Objects. His most recent album is Oude Koeien, a beautifully remastered collection of eight rarities, all but one vinyl issues originally released on de Waard's label Korm Plastics in the late 1990s.

The set is framed by Three Pieces "im Alten Stil" (in the Old Style), three tracks originally released on a 10-inch and constructed with a sonic vocabulary reminiscent of the earliest tape experimental works from Cologne. Music composed from sine waves and impulse generators isn't rare these days, but Meelkop's sudden transitions and dry events knitted together with static sound fields, and a complete absence of a dance-floor beat in favor of a sparse set of events, show a different aesthetic altogether. The second and third pieces must have been infuriating on vinyl, populated with sharp pointed gestures that would send me looking for big gouges in the disc, but these are mere interludes amidst drawn-out electronic fields. The third pieces has a greater variety of successive textures, from the noisy vinyl runoff to Basic Channel rhythms.

Four of the remaining pieces were originally released on small vinyls, and here they are reissued as single tracks, not divided into A and B sides and not always obvious where such a division might have occurred. According to the Frans de Waard's liner notes, "(Riktigt Död)" is a "recycle remix" of "Veramente Morte", where the sharp and intense noise bursts in the original are softened, and everything overlaid with a vinyl patina of decay. A remix from Jos Smolders plunders an original 99 tracks onto a five-inch lathe cut, and a Beequeen remix thunders another subterranean single-minded bass before starting over, reworking electronics and field recordings into burst of mournful energy. The remaining piece, "Echt Dood", is a slowly evolving series of textures crackling with energy and intensity.

Meelkop's Oude Koeien may be "old cows" from his back catalog, but his compositional vision is well suited to their sonic austerity. Equally interesting is the commentary on the remix and reissue culture, playing with the analog/digital boundary as well. The cover art by Rutger Zuydervelt of Machinefabriek, uncharacteristically representational with lovingly photographed grilled steak and garnish, is another commentary on the abstract, even spartan, music inside. Herbal International deserve kudos for making this collection available.
- Caleb Deupree -

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Digital Daylight Distribution Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Digital Daylight Distribution is the online side of Herbal Records. Herbal is an experimental music label founded in 2003 by Goh Lee Kwang in Malaysia.

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