Stian Westerhus & Teun Verbruggen
Earthbound Monochrome
BELGIUM RAT RECORDS RAT057 C.D. (2023)
Stian Westerhus and Teun Verbruggen are the men behind a recent and interesting sidebar to the more established endeavours of Warped Dreamer, a space rock project of Norwegian/Belgian parentage. Both can be found on releases through Consouling Sounds and the Rat Records imprints – the latter having Teun as its c.e.o. Composer/producer Westerhus is a much-travelled avant-prescence with a ‘to do’ list focused on extracting a considerable number of alternate, digitalized voicings for the electric six-string, accelerating wildly away from the magnetic pull of say, Keith Rowe’s attachments or, the one-time contents of Thurston Moore’s tool box. All of that and drummer/percussionist Teun’s tricksy manipulation of otherworldly circuitry (his second string), would signpost this combined venture as yet another classic case of the listener being unable to discern just what is actually off the cuff and just what is written on the cuff (as a cue). It’s to be expected when faced with a duo firmly entrenched in textbook improv/outer edge disciplines. This grey area that they’ve cultivated (an earthbound monochrome?) is a place I’m more than happy to live in for half an hour or so…
Contrary to the album title, nearly all of the material (excepting “The Hickson Association” – who they?) alludes to distant points in d-e-e-p space. Colliding galaxies, asterisms and triple star systems are all name-checked and interpreted by the twosome with a reflective, cliché-free approach. But it needs to be said that this isn’t just a mere echo of Warped Dreamer’s cosmic signatures. With “Red Shift” (no relation to the Peter Hammill meisterwerk) and “Class B”, these zig-zagging, hyperactive bolts of electricity and weird, repetitive ‘engaged phone-line’ frequencies suggest a hefty attack of claustrophobia instead of images where vast stretches of cosmic, inky blackness lurk. “Alnitak” and “Ursa” finds the guitar shorn of its previous disguises. A more recognizable tone this time, reminiscent in the latter piece, of Caspar Brötzmann, seemingly battling it out with a score of Jamie Muir-programmed percussion droids. Audio carnage that thankfully ends in a draw.
Recorded live (always a brave move), at “Werkplaats Walter”, December 2021 by Dieter Claeys, while editing, mixing and mastering duties were covered by the ubiquitous Stian Westerhus, “Earthbound…” is also available in a vinyl format.