zweites Treffen (undefiniert) (KIRIGIRISU RECORDINGS kgr043) is a split CDR credited to Modelbau and Steffan de Turck.
Modelbau is yet another alias for the indefatigable Frans de Waard; he’s made nearly 100 records under this alias alone, since 2012, and that’s not counting singles and appearances on other records. On ‘The Bi Polars’ he performs for 18 minutes – and reading the description here, at least two or three methods typify the Modelbau approach. One of them is the use of multiple sources and playback devices for his live concerts; another feature is that he blurs the lines between performing live and making preparations for the concerts. Everything, it seems, gets recorded and stored (and archived); everything from the archive is fair game to be thrown into the pot for the next live appearance. If he wanted to propose an efficient way for society to perform recycling more effectively he could have done no better than suggest doing it the Modelbau way, if only our “green” politicians would listen to him. I see no reason why the Modelbau Method couldn’t work as a feasible energy consumption plan, besides applying it to the obvious starting points of glass, metal, cardboard, and timber thrown into skips. Artists can revolutionise society, which is probably why they are often prevented from doing so.
As to Steffan de Turck, he’s represented here by two pieces ‘Kitchen Sink Realism’ and ‘The Air Next Door’. Steffan also trades as aMP, Kamloops, staplerfahrer, and Stompifier, and is a member of Preliminary Saturation and other groups. I think staplerfahrer was the earlier alias, but he’s been active for some 20-25 years…processed field recordings and high-quality lo-fi drone seem to be the guiding watchwords and cog-turners on today’s offerings, keeping the work very simple and transparent, without once becoming inscrutably minimal or banal. The first piece almost works as an abstract radio play, or modernist Zen-like story of associations and poetic musings; the arrival of a distant thunderstorm after a puzzling mechanical drone is just one of his many strokes of near-genius. Unlike some phonographers, de Turck doesn’t seem to be especially fixated on presenting the “truth” about a specific location, rather one who forages and collects sounds on his perambulations as he pleases, working to an intuitive logic. One might plausibly think of him as an acolyte of Frans de Waard, since he’s been following the latter since the mid-1990s after an encounter at the Staalplaat shop. Frans de Waard is one of the few people in the world who can take someone under their wing without a hint of condescension; I’d like to think he’s a true enabler, cultivating talent when he finds it.
One of many fine CDRs received from this Japanese label on 14 March 2024; this one has entered its second pressing.