DIRK SERRIES contributed a fine ambient piece (which incorporates the purr sounds of his house cat Kuro) to the beautiful compilation – all profits go to the aid of older shelter cats.
★ NAME-YOUR-PRICE DOWNLOAD ★ For Charity!
This collection stars our beloved cats whose purrs fill the heart of each track. Fourteen artists in the electronic, ambient, space music, and drone genres weave their kitty’s purrs into the mix highlighting the warmth and unique presence our feline companions add to our lives. Though some of these magnificent beings have passed on, their essence runs throughout. With all royalties and profits going to an elder-cat charity, PURR24 is nearly 100 minutes following sonic tangents and red dots of light created with our furbabies in our thoughts.
Projekt-founder Sam Rosenthal’s 18-year-old collaborator Nova Cat passed away in April. “When Nova died,” he reflects, “I lifted my spirits thinking of the five years she spent with me, enjoying our friendship in her final forever home. I emailed Michael Stearns as we previously chatted about a kitten he found in Los Angeles in the 80s who lived to 23 (108 in human years!) I knew he could empathize with my attachment to older cats who need more care yet offer a wealth of wisdom and love. With ideas of a benefit album and royalties donated to an elder-cat charity, I asked Michael if he’d create a song incorporating his kitty’s purrs. I’d already released two collaborative albums with my Nova (as ‘Nova Cat Purring Sounds’). I was interested in what other artists would create within the purr + music concept.”
Rosenthal continues, “Collectively, we’ve been in the music business for more than 400 years; over those centuries many felines have shared our lives. They hang out in the studio, run around like madmen in the other room while we’re trying to create, and sometimes lie at the feet of our cellists curled up and purring to the deep tones. There’s a lot of ASMR of cat purrs available, but not much where the purrs are incorporated into music. The results here are loving, lovely and warm. My new kitties like listening to everyone’s purrs.”
In 1999, Rosenthal compiled (and released on Projekt) the darkwave collection A CAT-SHAPED HOLE IN MY HEART, raising over $10,000 for charity. With some help from feline-loving fans on social media and today’s streaming economy, there’s no telling what this album might raise! All artists royalties and profits are contributed to charity, starting with Senior Cat Action Network seniorcatnetwork.org/donate (and changing over time).
Out for a little bit over a week is this digital-only solo album of DIRK SERRIES. Following his recent albums AT FUTURE DAWN (Cloudchamber Recordings) and DEFIANCE OF SELF(Silentes) the composer continues to explore different sonic terrain. Still on the electric guitar with a motherboard of analog pedal, the 4 tracks on ZONAL DISTURBANCES start to give signs of a new signature style of ambience Dirk is constructing. Organic, brooding and eerie. You can purchase the album here :
AMBIENT LANDSCAPE REVIEW: “This is an amazing, semi-ambient excursion from Mr. Serries. At once caustic & experimental, Dirk deviates into a sonic world of sublimely drone-scaped melancholy contained within an ambient substructure that resonates not so subtle undertones of deliberate aural chaos. The sounds that Serries pries from his guitar are astounding; if you dig your #ambient with an edge, you owe it to yourself to give Zonal Disturbances an intentional listen!”
MOORS MAGAZINE REVIEW: “Dirk Serries is een buitengewoon veelzijdige Belgische gitarist die meestal op een archtop gitaar met anderen geïmproviseerde jazz maakt, maar hij heeft ook een zwak voor ambient, en dan haalt hij zijn elektrische gitaar tevoorschijn, en zijn effectenpedalen, en dan gaat hij los op een onnavolgbare manier. Denk dan niet aan kalme drones en rustgevende ambient, want wat je hier te horen krijgt is ambient met een ruw randje, regelmatig aanschurend tegen wat wij hier wel genietend “heerlijke pokkeherrie” noemen. Zonal Disturbances heeft Serries in één keer in zijn eigen homestudio opgenomen in oktober 2024, gemixed en gemastered en meteen uitgebracht. Bij een eerste beluistering mag het wellicht wat weerbarstige muziek lijken, maar als je vaker luistert (de drie fragmenten die ik je hier laat horen zou ik zeker drie keer beluisteren) hoor je de details en de kleine finesses die er in verstopt zitten, en kom je er achter hoe spannend en tegelijk melancholiek deze muziek is. Het is overigens bijna ongelofelijk dat Serries alles wat we hier horen aan zijn gitaar weet te ontlokken. Verbazingwekkend.”
VIDNA OBMANA – TWILIGHT OF PERCEPTION REDUX VOLUME ONE (1990-1998) (3CD, Zoharum)
After quite a numerous series of reissues of classic albums, it’s time for another real treat for fans of the VIDNA OBMANA. The compilation “Twilight Of Perception Redux Volume One 1990-1998” opens a collection of rare recordings, often unreleased before or scattered on various types of samplers, small formats, which are practically impossible to obtain today. Now these tracks have been collected in one place, rearranged, remastered and provided with a proper commentary by Dirk Serries. This collection, planned for at least four parts of three-disc compilations, is both a reliable compendium and a supplement to VIDNA OBMANA extensive discography. This edition released in an eight-panel digipack with graphics designed based on photos by Martina Verhoeven.
At an introductory price this first installment is now available with a 15% discount. Use the code : twilight2024 to order the digital album Use the code : twilight2024cd to order the 3xCD release. Valid till November 8th !
Following his recent albums AT FUTURE DAWN(Cloudchamber Recordings) and DEFIANCE OF SELF(Silentes) DIRK SERRIES continues to explore different sonic terrain. Still on the electric guitar with a motherboard of analog pedal, the 4 tracks on ZONAL DISTURBANCES start to give signs of a new signature style of ambience Dirk is constructing. Organic, brooding and eerie. You can purchase the album here : https://dirkserries.bandcamp.com/album/zonal-disturbances
After a succesful ‘name your price’ campaign on Projekt’s bandcamp, DIRK SERRIES & TRÖSTA’s MAGNETAR remains available at a small price for such expansive collection.
EXPOSE REVIEW : “A magnetar is a neutron star with an incredibly powerful magnetic field, such that as it decays it powers the emission of high energy electromagnetic radiation, and in particular x-rays and gamma rays. No need to worry about that here, this magnetar is completely safe and won’t harm your hearing, vision, or internal cell structure — no danger at all. In fact, being in the vicinity of this Magnetar is a relatively gentle and calming experience, though it is warm, a combination of ambient and melodic elements that cover the listener like a warm blanket on a cold autumn night under the stars. Dirk Serries should be well known to Exposé readers — we interviewed him years ago when he was using the moniker VidnaObmana to release his own work, as well as many collaborations with the likes of Steve Roach, Stratosphere, Asmus Tietchens, PBK and numerous others over a 40-plus year career. Trösta is Belgian saxophonist Nicolas Lefèvre, an outstanding player but relatively unknown, though we did review his 2021 collaboration with Serries titled Island on the Moon. On the ten improvised tracks at hand, Serries provides a heavily effected ambient guitar backdrop to the proceedings, while Trösta provides the melodies on alto sax with a mild amount of studio reverb. The sax is always clearly audible as such, while the same can’t be said for the expansive guitar sweeps, which often sound more like a wall of synthesizers, but the combination that they present together is always graceful, forceful, and melodically striking, though never harsh or abrasive in any way. For those who need categorizations, one might say it’s a mix of floating ambient and melodic jazz working together seamlessly, weaving in and out of a cosmic atmospheric fabric, each track around ten minutes in length, give or take a few minutes, and all together the album comes to well over 100 minutes. While there is definitely too much going on here to make it suitable for slumber, it’s a perfect soundtrack for relaxation and meditation.”
FREEJAZZ BLOG REVIEW : “Magnetar takes Serries to his formative ambient era, then working under VidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning pseudonyms, in a second duo album with fellow Belgian alto sax and electronics player-sound engineer-producer Trösta (aka Nicolas Lefèvre), following Island on the Moon (Consouling Sounds, 2022). The album was recorded live between 2021 and 2023 at Serries’ favorite Sunny Side Studios in Brussels, operated by Lefèvre. This 102-minute album offers atmospheric and peaceful yet quite melancholic, free improvised dreamscapes and drones of Serries’ expansive, effects-laden guitar lines, resonating with great reverb the subtle melodic phrases of Trösta. A highly immersive listening experience that highlights the close and powerful magnetic fields Serries and Trösta share.”
A subtle beauty is created by the graceful brushstrokes of saxophone and the ever-transforming textural surfaces of electric guitar. Trösta’s alto sax sets MAGNETAR apart from others in the ambient genre. Warmly phrased, his serene and graceful melodies are washed in reverb, flowing in long, engulfing passages. Across 102 minutes, Belgians Serries & Trösta (the nom de plume of Nicolas Lefèvre) reveal a solace drenched in the soft timbre of melancholy and light.
A late, a bit critical but luckily clever written review of ZOHARUM’s reissue of VIDNA OBMANA’s DANTE TRILOGY. VIDNA OBMANA’s use of Dante Alighieri’s famous poem was not to musicalize this impressive piece of literature but to draw parallels with VIDNA OBMANA’s own creative demons. The album is available here.
“I’ve been tending to pass by a lot of these Vidna Obmana reissues that have been steadily appearing from the Polish Zoharum label, but I must admit this Dante Trilogy (ZOHAR 288-2) set has too much “presence” for me to ignore. A triple digipak with a spine as thick your index finger stares down from your shelf and won’t take no for an answer. Between 2001 and 2004, the Belgian ambient emperor Dirk Serries trading as Vidna Obmana managed to put out the original CDs on the American label Release Entertainment, at the time an imprint more readily associated with avant-garde noise rock and experimental metal.
I suppose there is a subtext running through the entire work that either refers to Dante’s epic poem in an oblique manner or attempts to retell aspects of the story of the descent into the ninth circle of Hades, and there are some helpful printed quotes from the Cantos on the artworks, but I feel all these things are kept on the back burner and remain merely as props or illustrative cues on which the creator can hang his assorted reprocessed experiments, looping beats, and dark ambient tones. To put it another way, this isn’t a “concept” story-telling album like The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, and certainly the curators at Zoharum evince little interest in the works of Dante, let alone the “infernal” themes – the sound of Obmana is pretty much all they care about. On 2001’s Tremor, there are references to tunnels, descent, and something rather menacing called the “insane brightness”, but these glimpses of the diabolical zone are just that, hazy impressions delivered through the miasma of reprocessed recordings of flutes, pipes, electric guitar, harmonica, and percussion. Matter of fact the rhythms and beats might be the selling point for Tremor for an audience arriving 23 years after the fact, since along with the troubling off-kiltre non-chords and foggy moods, they help the album induce a rather queasy trance-like state akin to delirium. To achieve that mesmerism, it also helps that most of Tremor stays much in the same area – the same pace, the same overall tone; in fine, it doesn’t help to speak of a musical range when there are no conventional notes to speak of, rather an array of layers and textures.
By the time of 2003’s Spore, there might be a subtle turning down another alleyway or corridor of Lucifer’s kingdom, although the aesthetic changes are so indiscernible we’d need new maps of Hell to locate where the shift took place. The same instrumentation was used, including the “Recycling & Abstract Mutations” credit that was printed on the original release. This part of the trilogy contains a shade more violence and hints at the kind of painful flesh-tearing antics that Clive Barker would approve of, which isn’t to suggest this subtle music would have served as a good alternative soundtrack to the Hellraiser movies – although the closing cut, ‘Resonant Gore’ lasts for some 17 minutes and almost manages to propose its own horror movie just by dint of its extreme length. Obmana isn’t using ferocious hammering beats on Spore, but there is an ounce or two more reverb somewhere on these backing rhythms that induces mild panic attacks and nudges the listener closer to that “shamanistic” condition that many American droners were also shooting for around this period. Collectors of this Belgian creator’s work will be glad to note that the original 2002 7-inch version of ‘Isolation Trip’ has been included on this 2nd disc.
Lastly there’s the 2004 release Legacy which originally surfaced in late 2004. This time there’s finally an explicit link to the works of Dante as the opening track is a sung-spoken recit of the Italian bard’s lines delivered by Steve Von Till, speaking as if wrenched from the grave. I had to look him up, but he’s the singer and guitarist from Neurosis, the Californian dark-ambient psych-metal industrial band who also had albums on Release Entertainment and their sister label Relapse. This Legacy one seems the least interesting of the three to my ears – more of the same limp “tribal” rhythms and pulses, and the wispy tone-paintings swirling together in a smoky basket of puff. Is it my imagination, or are there one or two fewer “layers” for this 2004 realisation of the theme? It’s pointless to look for guitar solos or keyboard breaks in this long-form, meandering music, but somehow the separate elements which our man blends together so seamlessly seem to be slowly unravelling at some point, leaving us with a stark canvas of emptiness.
If I’m reading the Zoharum press note correctly, it seems this particular trilogy was about where Dirk Serries reached the end of one of his tethers – they speak of his personal “frustration, disappointment and creative turmoil”, perhaps in the context of his place in the field or genre of ambient music, and sure enough, three years later, he decided to retire the Vidna Obmana project.” The Sound Projector – UK
Welcome to the return of the fantastic bandcamp Fridays. A perfect way to support your favorite artists as bandcamp on this day wave their revenue fees. This makes a huge difference. So to accomodate you in this we’re giving you a blistering discount of 25% on digital and hard copy items. Valid on these two platforms and only for today !! bandcamp code : bcseptember24 https://newwaveofjazz.bandcamp.com/ https://dirkserries.bandcamp.com/
German noise rock drummer JÖRG A. SCHNEIDER teams up with DIRK SERRIES.As we know Dirk, who never shies away from a challenge, but this one is beyond there. The music is absolutely not drone but rather a cross-pollination between abstract post-punk and post-metal. Enormously swirling and very in-your-face. While Jörg treats his drums as a madman, Dirk establishes himself once again as inventive as ever before with another unique take on playing the guitar and treating the sound with real-time and on the spot effects. The result is alienating, captivating and plain powerful. A record that is released in the impressive series of Schneider collaborations.
DIRK SERRIES & TRÖSTA – MAGNETAR (Projekt Records Digital, 2024) now available as a ‘name your price’ download here.
Belgians Dirk Serries & Trösta (the nom de plume of Nicolas Lefèvre) release their second album of ambient drone. What sets MAGNETAR apart from many others in the genre is Trösta’s melodic alto saxophone. Warmly phrased, the saxophone spreads its serene and graceful melody, washed in reverb, flowing in long, engulfing phrases. Don’t think about the jazz use of the sax but consider it as a warm analog wind instrument that moves above, underneath and along with the expansive guitar soundscapes.
Serries began the project with electric guitar and effects; performed live in the studio, he received a duet in return. The results are elaborate soundscapes: a symphony of lyricism, depth and nuance. It’s a solace drenched in melancholy and light, organically made by the hands of talented musicians. The 102-minute album expands their unique sonic universe, creating a beautiful, harmonic and moody blend. Music created on the spot showcases how naturally their two worlds blend.
AVANT MUSIC NEWS wrote of their debut, “Serries, who has also recorded and performed under his VidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning pseudonyms, returns to his signature sound on this duo effort with Trösta on alto sax. Credited with electric guitar, Serries provides… layers of soft drones that gently reshape themselves. To this, Trösta adds plaintive and exploratory themes. Whether merging with the drones or serving a contrast thereto, these melancholy lines evoke a wistful and peaceful sadness… The result is not quite ambient, and neither dark nor light. Instead, it is a strangely moving set of long-form pieces that capture the emotions of the moment.”
LUMINOUS DASH wrote of their debut, “The two musicians produce a rich and compelling sound palette… Trösta colors the sonic swells in an impressive way with his saxophone. The duo immerses the listener in beneficial cosmic atmospheres that convey a soft timbre of melancholy.”
A subtle contrast is created between the fine, graceful brushstrokes of the saxophonist and the ever-transforming surfaces of the electric guitarist. Within a subtle cloud of sound, Trösta feels at home with his light, intimate playing as these two artists keep each other in balance walking together on a tightrope across a deep, dark chasm.
Recorded live, including all spatiotemporal effects at Sunny Side Studios between 2021-2023. Electric guitar, alto saxophone and electronics by Dirk Serries and Trösta. Mixed and mastered at Sunny Side Studios, Anderlecht.
dirkserries.com 