DIJKSTRA, RAYMOND - Die Wille

"Its perhaps no big secret that I am a big fan of the work of Raymond Dijkstra, and maybe reviewing all of his previous work, entitled me to a copy of each of this: a big black wooden box with golden text, in an edition of merely 100 copies - the preprogrammed art item or well calculated collectors item? (You decide). Times three. Crouton released a big wooden box, while Dijkstras Le Souffleur label releases two LPs at the same time in a linen hardcover box with debossed and gold print, like his previous Affen-Theater (see Vital Weekly 479). Sound wise Dijkstra continues the road he choose now for a while. A while ago I saw him in concert,with Timo van Luyck, with whom he has an ongoing collaboration, and their set up is very simple. An ancient loop echo, a small table and a small bunch of objects that are played on the table, like glass, knives, forks and wood. On Maskenstilleben Dijkstra continues this. Somewhere in the back there are the disharmonious drone like chords he plays, seemingly at random, whereas in the foreground there are scrapings and scratching of the surface, which are fed through the ancient echo machine (which, to be honest, could have been a little less). Perhaps the use of echo makes this electro-acoustic music, but its merely a deception to call it like that. This is acoustic music in optima forma and one of a highly original kind. Composition? Not of great interest for Dijkstra. Structure? Nope. Being part of a scene? Which one, or in fact is there one? Not for Dijkstra. He claims to work best in strict isolation, building up the pressure and when he plays his music, he releases his pressure. Inside his closed system (both mentally and in the real world), he derives the sounds which he likes, plays them ad infinitum, without beginning or end. This is noise music, but stepped outside the relatively known genre of overload. This is improvisation, but not as we knew it. Total outsider music, as its hard to come across Dijkstra, who hardly plays concerts. Not part of the serious music world, the underground noise scene, microsound or the laptop flock, he persists very much in his world. Releasing my work I only do for metaphysical reasons; to keep all psychic and physical channels open, and maintaining a healthy system. It is not much more then relieving yourself in the toilet", he says. I hardly see anything more beautiful, both music and package wise, coming from relieving yourself in the toilet (the analogy is a bit lost on me, but then I am an outsider to his world). The differences between the three LPs is not very big. Normally it could result in me nagging about that, but in the case of Dijkstra you can only see the purity by which he works. We hardly complain about people using guitars and drums, so why should we complain about Dijkstra using objects like glass and metal? Its not the same song repeated three times. Each is genuinely different from the previous or the following record. The instruments remain the same, the composition remains the same, yet, like a good monochrome painting, the differences are in the detail. Die Sonne I thought was a bit more minimal than the other two, more sparse, while Maskenstilleben was a bit more dense, and Die Wille, although close to Die Sonne fell sort of in between the two. After a bunch of self-released records, the release for Crouton may open more doors for Dijkstra, and probably he doesnt care, but at least the public should care. Three great LPs, by all means, although Art (big A in place) doesnt come cheap." - FdW/Vital Weekly. "LP in linen hardcover box with debossed and gold printing, edition of 100 copies. Handmade by the artist. Signed, numbered, with place and date."