Totally shocked by the news that Bob Rusche passed away. Since our very first encounter in the successful days of Boudisque Records in the eighties, Bob and I kept in touch. It was thanks to Bob I got to play 3 times on the excellent X-rated, back then on KINK FM where he ran the radio show with his good friend the late Arjen Grolleman, and joined the X-rated festival at Paradiso in 2002.
Bob was a walking musical encyclopedia, not once was I able to introduce new music to him, no matter how obscure the music was I tried to challenge him with. But also a super friendly and warm person, every time, anywhere we met at festivals, at concerts or at the concertzender.
With Bob we’re loosing one of the independent radio giants and a dear comrade.
For the fans of VIDNA OBMANA and ambient music…. here’s a tip !
Subscribe yourself to the STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS series and you’ll save a lot of money while enjoying the ongoing story and supporting the artist in his creative process… these digital exclusive albums aren’t available anywhere else than on bandcamp.
This is what DIRK SERRIES wrote on the subscription series, when launched : Welcome to the home of my Streams Of Consciousness music series. An assemblage of my ongoing drive to compose, perform and record the ambient music I’ve been known for under main pseudonym Vidna Obmana and more recently under my own name. What distinguishes the Streams Of Consciousness series is that this is the purest form of creating the ambience. The constant factor in my expansive oeuvre and the artistic hunger to keep on growing and learning. There isn’t a month that passes without having the need to go full into the purest form of soundscaping. The set-up is simple : an electric guitar, a very small pedal board of four effects. Each idea/theme/motif is performed live into my DAW and mixed/mastered for instant release here.
No edits, no additional layering. Music that is part of my DNA, the heartbeat of my passion for the purest form of what I call my vintage ambient music. A set-up that allows me to just sit down, take a breath and create/perform/record.
Subscribing to this collection will help me to sustain this creativity, to bring a bit of comfort to the technical side of things like instrument maintance, upgrading the studio and giving me the space, time and foremost artistic freedom to continue to create this streams of consciousness. On top of that is the annual subscription price of 55 EUR way below the amount of albums that will be published and when bought individually. Annually there’ll be at least 10 albums.
EYE ON : VIDNA OBMANA – THE SPIRITUAL BONDING (1994)
After the success of ECHOING DELIGHT (which we wrote about previously), EXTREME RECORDS supported VIDNA OBMANA with a budget to record its follow-up at the Timeroom Studio of Steve Roach in Tucson, Arizona. While Steve and Vidna Obmana were already corresponding, this session became the foundation for their friendship and creative output over the next years to come. Armed with pre-recorded sources and ideas in mind, VIDNA OBMANA travelled to the vast Sonoran desert in February 1993 for a week of recording, great fun and just getting to know each other. The experience was mesmerizing and led to THE SPIRITUAL BONDING, creating the unique creative and personal connection between Steve Roach and Vidna Obmana. The title says it all… The album has guest contributions of ALIO DIE, DJEN AJAKAN SHEAN and ROBERT RICH.
For a short period, you can enjoy this essential record at ‘name your price’ :
Photo is the press release sheet of THE SPIRITUAL BONDING…
Dirk Serries collaborated with his dear friend and musical comrade, the legendary experimental composer, ASMUS TIETCHENS for the 6th time. Germany’s Attenuation Circuit released the album officially today !
“With Dirk Serries and Asmus Tietchens, attenuation brings together two towering figures of experimental sound. Serries—known for Vidna Obmana and Fear Falls Burning—has been a key force in shaping (dark) ambient, while also maintaining a presence in free jazz. Tietchens, one of the most respected composers of electroacoustic music outside academia, has spent over six decades crafting a singular body of work spanning ambient, industrial, noise, and musique concrète. His influence on global experimental sound culture remains profound.
Their collaboration dates back to the 1990s, beginning with an untitled album (Syrenia, 1995), followed by Motives for Recycling (Soleilmoon, 1999), which included reinterpretations of earlier Tietchens material, and the double album The Shifts Recyclings (Soleilmoon, 2002), where both artists reworked source sounds by Frans de Waard’s project Shifts. After a two-decade hiatus, they reunited in 2022 with Die Höfner Akten (aufabwegen), a work rooted in musique concrète, in which Serries’ acoustic guitar sources remained partially recognizable within Tietchens’ precise and analytical processing.
Their new album, Die Regeninsel, takes a different path. Built on Serries’ richly processed electric guitar textures, the music unfolds into expansive, immersive drone-ambient landscapes. Tietchens reshapes these materials through layering and density, evoking shifting sonic “states” of precipitation. While the evocative, almost programmatic titles suggest a more “naturalistic” listening mode—unusual for Tietchens—they leave ample space for abstraction, allowing the listener to move freely between image and pure sound.” press text by Gerald Fiebig
After recording his well-received ambient trilogy (Passage In Beauty, Shadowing In Sorrow and Ending Mirage), Vidna Obmana got in touch with Belgian percussionist Djen Ajakan Shean. It was this injection that led him to slowly incorporate more rhythmical passages and tribal influences. Almost simultaneously interest in Vidna Obmana’s music grew which led to the connection with Australian Extreme Records. Armed with only his KORG workstations and a Roland R8 drum computer, Vidna Obmana had no access to multi-track recording back then so everything was created in overdub modus, using two DAT machines. Of course limiting his options in editing, recording the acoustic parts and better mixing.
ECHOING DELIGHT was released in 1993 on Extreme Records and ranked for weeks as number one on the New Musical Express ‘techno’ charts in the UK. Sadly the label never shared any reports so the reason why so high and long on these charts remains unknown. After The Spiritual Bonding in 1994, Vidna Obmana, among many others on the label, broke connection with Extreme Records and the masters were eventually, after long debate, returned.
For a short period, you can enjoy this lo-fi recordings of that tour at ‘name your price’.
Photo is the press release sheet of ECHOING DELIGHT….
Before heading out to France for another chapter in his life, DIRK SERRIES played one more concert at this beautiful chapel in Belgium. The Oude Klooster chapel in Brecht has been the stage for many of his activities. With A NEW WAVE OF JAZZ the chapel transformed to a recording space for several albums and a concert space for some ad-hoc improvisations while MARTINA VERHOEVEN organised her well-received DEEP LISTENINGS concerts. On October 16th, 2025 at a sold-out chapel, Belgian Dirk Serries (acclaimed for his work as vidnaObmana) sculpted a melancholic deep ambient atmosphere with just one electric guitar and a handful outboard effects. Fully in vein of his renowned STREAMS OF CONSCIOUSNESS series, this concert is now available as a digital-only release.
KRAUTNICK REVIEW : Dieses Album markiert einen besonderen biografischen Punkt im Leben des vielsaitigen Gitarristen Dirk Serries: „Live Oude Klooster Chapel 2025“ war am 16. Oktober das letzte Konzert des Antwerpeners, bevor er ins Nachbarland Frankreich umsiedelte. Ausgestattet mit seiner E-Gitarre und Effektgeräten, machte er sich den ihm bereits mehrfach vertrauten Hallraum der Klosterkapelle in Brecht zunutze und ließ die Töne eine Stunde lang frei schweben. Man darf gespannt sein: Wie setzt er seinen künstlerischen Weg in der meeresfernen Fremde fort?
Stille leitet diesen Livemitschnitt ein. Es dauert, bis sich überhaupt Töne erheben. Serries lässt sich und uns Zeit, sich daran zu gewöhnen, dass in dieser Stille Leben existiert, dass es sich behutsam und zögerlich erhebt, woher auch immer, möglicherweise aus dem Staub, der sich in Jahrhunderten in der Kapelle angesammelt hat, und dann raumgreifend über die Hörerschaft legt, um sie herum einen transparenten neuen Raum im Raum bildet, in sie dringt. Von irgendwoher, eher oben vermutlich, schickt die Sonne einige Strahlen ins Gemäuer, und diese Strahlen erhellen den Ton, der vom organisch mäandernden Staub ausgeht, heben ihn an, senken ihn ab, folgen der Bewegung des ätherischen Korpus, konterkarieren diese, lassen der Kapellenatmosphäre wieder die Gelegenheit, sich zu beruhigen, und heben erneut an, werden beinahe melodisch, bleiben auf jeden Fall harmonisch. Stille leitet diesen Mitschnitt nach einer Stunde auch wieder aus.
Serries‘ Gitarre klingt mal wieder gar nicht nach Gitarre. Die Töne stehen für sich, langanhaltend, unendlich, chimärenhaft, sogar vielgeteilt, mit mehreren Tönen nebeneinander, umeinander. Der Geist sucht Vertrautes, und so meint man bisweilen, eine Orgel wahrzunehmen, aber das kann auch daran liegen, dass man sich in einer Kapelle wähnt. Manchmal erinnern die Sounds auch an Ambient aus Synthesizern, da muss man sich dann kurz bewusst machen, dass da in Wahrheit ein Mann mit seiner E-Gitarre in der Kapelle sitzt. Da wäre man gern dabei gewesen, irgendwo in den Bänken, und hätte dieser Musik beim Entstehen zugesehen.
Und nun lebt der Antwerpener Experimental-Tausendsassa also in der Region Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, einer Gegend, so groß wie nebenan die ganze Schweiz. Zumindest erklärt es, warum es dieser Tage so wenige Veröffentlichungen des Vielbeschäftigten gibt: So ein Umzug bindet Energien. Wie er die wohl künftig entfesseln wird?
SPONTANEOUS MUSIC TRIBUNE REVIEW : Na tych łamach nie trzeba nikogo specjalnie zachęcać do odbywania sennych, mrocznych, ambientowych podróży w towarzystwie samotnej gitary tego belgijskiego artysty. Ta najnowsza jest nagraniem koncertowym, powstałym w świetnie nam znanym obiekcie w Brechcie. Ta akurat epopeja dźwiękowa Serriesa wydaje się wyjątkowo spokojna, dramaturgicznie wyważona, ale niesie też w sobie ziarno niemal egzystencjalnej wątpliwości, a nawet trwogi. Jest tradycyjnie piękna, niemal relaksacyjna, ale po ostatnim dźwięku pozostawia nas w stanie, który nie pozwala na spokojny sen.
Opowieść nadciąga z błogiej ciszy, leniwie płynie ciepłymi podmuchami powietrza, zdaje się koić nasze utrudzone zmysły mocą frasobliwej łagodności. Trwa, bo nie ma początku i nie będzie miała końca. Początkowo wydaje się lekka jak puch, z czasem zostaje doposażona dodatkowymi warstwami, niekiedy bardziej mrocznymi. W połowie zdaje się konać w kolejnej chmurze ciszy, ale odradza kroplami rozpaczy i strzępami tajemniczej nerwowości. Dopiero ostatni kwadrans niesie nadzieję, można bowiem odnieść wrażenie, że niektóre dźwięki stają się jakby bardziej jaskrawe.
ROCKERILLA REVIEW : Un concerto registrato durante il trasloco che ha visto il musicista belga trasferirsi dopo 50 anni in Francia. Un omaggio alla sua terra suonato seguendo le ispirazioni che hanno dato vita a tanti capitoli della serie A Streams Of Consciousness. Dirk Serries solo con la sua chitarra elettrica e la solita montagna di effetti che ne trasfigurano la natura fino a rendere le sinusoidi generate dalla sei corde delle onde marine più simili a drone sintetici in grado di avvolgere chi li ascolta. Come da prassi oramai consolidata, il flusso di coscienza si presenta come una lunga traccia della durata di poco piu di un’ora, da ascoltare tutta la notte in infinite repeat. Intimo e solenne.
In Dirk Serries’ exclusive Streams Of Consciousness‘ series, a new episode is now out. Duet ‘Glimmering Below’ and ‘Outside Twilight’ are two new slabs of beautiful harmonic space. Slowly progressing, refining and expanding his trademark ambient music on the electric guitar (and a handful of outboard effects).
Available here :
Also check out the subscription option as you’ll save a lot of money while enjoying the ongoing story and supporting the artist in his creative process…
Before we start to highlight the new releases, what is out already and what’s forthcoming, here’s another bit of lovely news.
We’ve debated among ourselves about this for a long time and even checked in with some of the die-hard fans but it’s time to unleash a subscription option for Dirk Serries’ Streams Of Consciousness series.
This is what Dirk Serries wrote on the subscription series :
Welcome to the home of my Streams Of Consciousness music series. An assemblage of my ongoing drive to compose, perform and record the ambient music I’ve been known for under main pseudonym Vidna Obmana and more recently under my own name. What distinguishes the Streams Of Consciousness series is that this is the purest form of creating the ambience. The constant factor in my expansive oeuvre and the artistic hunger to keep on growing and learning. Those who know me and have been following me over these past 4 decade can confirm that there are almost no artistic boundaries in my musical experiments. From the harsh industrial music early on to the free improvised live events throughout Europe and releases on A New Wave Of Jazz. Even when a new ‘ambient’ album appears on a label, it still holds enough twists and turns. However there isn’t a month that passes without having the need to go full into the purest form of soundscaping. The set-up is simple : an electric guitar, a very small pedal board of four effects. Each idea/theme/motif is performed live into my DAW and mixed/mastered for instant release here.
No edits, no additional layering. Music that is part of my DNA, the heartbeat of my passion for the purest form of what I call my vintage ambient music. Music that I once, long time ago, performed on synthesizers and a lot of outboard gear during the early ambient years of Vidna Obmana. Think of Gathering In Frozen Beauty (1989), Near The Flogging Landscape (1990) or my trilogy uniting Passage In Beauty (1991), Shadowing In Sorrow (1992) and Ending Mirage (1993). Of course now, thanks to the digital evolution, upgraded and trimmed down to the most minimal set-up to re-imagine that minimalism and introspective quality in my music. A set-up that allows me to just sit down, take a breath and create/perform/record.
Subscribing to this collection will help me to sustain this creativity, to bring a bit of comfort to the technical side of things like instrument maintance, upgrading the studio and giving me the space, time and foremost artistic freedom to continue to create this streams of consciousness. On top of that is the annual subscription price of 55 EUR way below the amount of albums that will be published and when bought individually. Annually there’ll be at least 10 albums.
TODAY IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY ! As you know on this day bandcamp generously waive their fees to support independent musicians, bands and labels across the globe. This means that when you buy on this particular Friday no fees will be deducted from your purchase to us.
As you can imagine this extra will help us to continue, record new music and maintain the system to do this all. But without your support this doesn’t work so for us a moment to send back our gratitude and offer you some interesting discounts on the music we share.
For any digital purchase you’ll be able to use a discount of 50%. Use the code : bcmay26 on these platforms :
TODAY IS BANDCAMP FRIDAY ! As you know on this day bandcamp generously waive their fees to support independent musicians, bands and labels across the globe. This means that when you buy on this particular Friday no fees will be deducted from your purchase to us.
As you can imagine this extra will help us to continue, record new music and maintain the system to do this all. But without your support this doesn’t work so for us a moment to send back our gratitude and offer you some interesting discounts on the music we share.
For any digital purchase you’ll be able to use a discount of 50%. Use the code : bcmay26
MAX DEVEREAUX/HAYASHIPOOO/NAMEBYNAMES – LIVE AT ENVIRONMENT0G, OSAKA – 04.10.2024
(digital exclusive – A New Wave Of Jazz)
When guitarist MAX DEVEREAUX reached out to our label for a possible release, we went together through a variety of recordings. And it was this striking performance that really triggered our ears. A live room recording that, despite its quality restrictions, still documented this incredible concert with all its nuances, strength and stream of instant ideas between the 3 protagonists. LIVE IN OSAKA is an electrifying, multi-layered and provocative performance. We’re very thrilled to release this gem on our label in our digital exclusive series.
Recorded on Max Devereaux’s 30th birthday during his 2024 tour of Japan, Live at environment0g, Osaka — 04.10.2024 captures the final performance of his journey south through the country. The event took place at the renowned subterranean experimental venue, environment0g, in Osaka’s Nishi ward—a district defined by its stark, modern reconstruction following significant air-raid bombing devastation in WWII.
The performance was envisioned as a birthday celebration, organized with the help of Osaka-based electronic musician and longtime collaborator Chie Otomi. While Otomi initially suggested a solo set, Devereaux opted for a collaborative trio, inviting the night’s opening electronic artists, hayashipooo and nameBYnames, to join him. This arrangement allowed Devereaux to study their sonic palettes from the audience during their opening sets before introducing his electric guitar stylings into the mix.
The performance was deeply informed by the environment; Devereaux cites the relentless construction noise outside the hotel he was staying at in Osaka, Zone Shinsaibashi West, as a primary influence. The sounds of a city perpetually “under construction” mirrored his own artistic transition into a new decade. To reflect this, he utilized a “dislodged,” unfinished guitar style, stitching broken melodies into unpredictable electronic landscapes and broadcasting a small portable radio through his pickups—inspired by his hero, John Cage.
Accompanied by experimental visuals from nameBYnames and BGM by Otomi, the event served as a raw reflection on thirty years of life and a creative process that remains—much like the city itself—an experimental work in progress.
