bamboo music

"The basic recordings for this cassette were made by J. Derwort during the first months of 1987 in Lekkerkerk, using a Revox two-track recorder. each track has its own environment and (often) handmade acoustical instrument. Special sounds or environments were sometimes added during mastering"










Sakamoto-Sylvian still sounds phuture

Soundohm release-rationale for the J.Derwort, now vinylized  in rearranged form by Astral Industries

"Time, in the landscape of contemporary music, has collapsed. The past occupies the present, and the present easily becomes an unnoticed past. Yet, even with all flux, temporal boundaries tend to remain fixed - albums from then entering the now, albums from the now, becoming then - making active conversation between the two almost a forgone point. The London based imprint, Astral Industries’, latest release - ‘Bamboo Music, an interventionary celebration of the music of Dutch ambient music pioneer, Jacobus Derwort, turns these divisions on their head. An album entirely of this moment, built from the objects of the past, it’s a stunningly beautiful conceptual journey in sound. 

Jacobus Derwort, who sadly passed away earlier this year, was among the generation of all too overlooked ambient composers who emerged toward the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s - rethinking the form beyond the permitters within which it had been previously known - often takin it into more markedly experimental realms. His most celebrated work, Bamboo, issued in 1987 as a cassette following a concentrated stint of recording on a Revox two-track recorder with mostly hand made instruments, remains an incredible, freestanding glimpse of this remarkable world, and forms the root of the album before us. Conceived with each track offered its own conceptual environment - gentle, breezy gestures paired with layers of subbass, bird calls, and trickling, fluid electronics, Bamboo Music - a subtle intervention with Derwort’s original works by his long time collaborator and bandmate, Hanyo van Oosterom, pushes these immersive depths one step further. 

Creating an extended, almost total environment, Bamboo Music is a seamless suite which stitches together fragments from the Derwort’s ‘Bamboo, his 2000 release of ‘Bamboo Music’, and with further works commissioned for commercial use, creating an entirely reality which exists outside time. Stunning beautiful and and immersive, sounds rise as yet another vibrant rethinking of minimalism and the very notions of the experimental and the avant-garde. Wondrous, thrilling, and elegant from start to finish, this one is not to be missed. An essential entry into the contemporary sonic landscape which challenges how we manage the past in the present day, with hits at the territories of Mike Cooper, Coil, and David Toop lingering within. Incredible work by Astral Industries. 

 
Chi, aka  The Chi Factory -  a group Derwort, was in (also reissued by Astral Industries)