almost-forgotten ambient session, Sint-Niklaas 1994

I've found an old tape from when I was living in Belgium in the mid-90's, when I'd only been playing improvised music with Inge for a few months (before I'd discovered the saz and she the mandolin). The music's quite wobbly in places, but interesting enough to be worthy of preservation as a "historical curiosity". The tape wasn't properly labelled, so there is a chance that it's from early '95, but it's more likely to be autumn '94.

Funkey - synths
me - electric guitar and effects
Inge - acoustic guitar, penniwhistle, accordion drones, melodica, percussion, "Jah!"

possibly
Alan - percussion
and someone playing bass? Kris? Mickey?

Funkey's Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze influences are very much in evidence. This was recorded in the early days of Funkey, Kris and Alan's psychedelic dub band Oort Cloud. They used to rehearse in the same place - Funkey's front room in Sint-Niklaas, a.k.a. Higher Grow Studios.


Natasja and Christophe at an Oort Cloud rehearsal, Higher Grow Studio
I was playing electric guitar through Kris's newly acquired digital effects module, particularly enamoured with one effect labelled only "amazing!", as I recall. This had the welcome "effect" of dispersing my notes into showers of crystalline fragments, thereby covering up my rather dubious playing.

In one piece, Funkey triggers a sample of a voice proclaiming "Rastafari is everywhere!", after which Inge shouts "Jah!". This was borrowed from the RAS Records album Rastafari Elders.

This was a pretty spontaneous session, as I recall. Just another spaced-out afternoon round at Funkey's and a great chance to explore, musically. He had the good sense to leave a cassette running throughout. I've editted out four chunks from my 2nd or 3rd generation copy.

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