HET CONCREET IS AN EXPERIMENTAL SOUND STUDIO BASED IN TILBURG [NL]
Sound is the vocabulary of nature
– Pierre Schaeffer
Het Concreet explores the domain of sound. In the studio of Het Concreet, analog sound techniques find their way into the present. In the spirit of the analog music pioneers of the last century - Éliane Radigue, Brian Eno, Pierre Schaeffer - Het Concreet is working on tomorrow’s experimental music.
Why use analog technology? Working with analog material means working with attentiveness and surrender. The material is unpredictable, but gives infinite depth to sound. In an age of speed and manufacturability, analog tape reveals to us something of the essence of human nature: materiality, capriciousness and aesthetics. We share this vision with the artists and audiences we gather around us. Together we explore the domain of sound.
This is our manifest:
> Het Concreet explores new sounds through manipulation of analog tape & equipment
> No digital interfaces shall be used between source and output
> Experiment is key, no composition is fully predesigned
> We never walk alone: we invite musicians, artists, philosophers and our audience on our journey
> While wandering, we collect sounds, words, thoughts and experiences in order to write our tapeloop philosophy
Het Concreet is a long-term project conceived by composers Mathijn den Duijf and Mathijs Leeuwis and creative producer Anneroos Goosen.
In recent years, our artistic signatures have slowly fuzed through a series of collaborative projects, and our creative work as makers has become inextricably linked. We express a common artistic vision in which the analog tape forms the basis of an experimental quest to explore and present new worlds of sound. In 2020 we founded Het Concreet, and started our studio space.
Het Concreet has a close affinity with the legacy left by the pioneers of analog music of the 20th century. But instead of solely continuing in the path of these pioneers, Het Concreet seeks new spaces, applications and audiences for the music deriving from our quest. Tape is very much an instrument of contemporary value and we are driven by the urgency to express this proposition. In our studio, we invite a wide range of makers and musicians to work with us to explore all possible sounds within the domain of analog creation and manipulation.
Our artistic practice is elusive and volatile because its core is in fact a matter of trying, trying again, and again and again. There might not be a clear beginning, nor an end. There is no repertoire, there is only experiment. Yet there are moments that we try to consolidate these efforts, in order to grasp what we are doing and hearing. We do this by talking to everybody involved: artists and audiences, noobs and theorists. We believe this will lead us to a deep understanding of the value we bring into being with our artistic practice: our tapeloop philosophy.
Mathijn den Duijf (1971) composes whilst tinkering with tape recorders. His machinery is his musical instrument and is used to print sound and shape to analog tape with both mathematic precision as well as pure serendipity. His compositions are grounded in pulse and are looped around no input feedback, analog sound synthesis and acoustic instruments such as piano, and come together unparalleled. His interest in electronic music was fueled during his MA in Musicology in Utrecht and he gained experience as electro-musician and producer whilst working with Kytemans Hiphop Orchestra, Kytecrash and Mathijs Leeuwis. Mathijn listens to music that holds him captivated at every hearing: Italian opera, ultra-hard techno, analog sound synthesis, brass quintets and The Band.
Mathijs Leeuwis (1985) hears the greatest beauty in the transience of sound. One might call it the authenticity of decay. Whether it’s Alan Lomax’s field recordings or experimental compositions with everyday sounds from the musique concrète, Mathijs is fascinated by it and wants to master it. There has to be life in sound, an unpredictability. Imperfection as the highest attainable. Mathijs is a composer and pedal steel guitarist with a deep-rooted fascination for analog sound sources, and the power to create artistic concepts that spark the imagination. In 2021/2022 Mathijs will be City Composer for Tilburg and together with Anthony Fiumara he forms ambient duo Poulson Sq. Mathijs listens to Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno, Éliane Radigue, William Basinsky and every piece of music that unfolds slowly, in time, almost unseen, to perfection.
Anneroos Goosen (1987) connects words to elusive sounds, and seeks to unravel a sense of wonder in order to answer the simple question: what is the mechanism behind all this? This quest has formed through a carefully constructed puzzle that always kept place for coincidence: from the alienating films by Maya Deren to the endless copied worlds of Jean Baudrillard to extended personalities in a digital matrix: Anneroos has studied it in order to fathom and navigate this phenomenon. Within Het Concreet she not only takes care of business but also works on our tape loop philosophy: a deep understanding of the value of our analog materials and the surplus we bring into being through our creative process. Anneroos listens to Earth, Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens and Tante Leen and is a big fan of the repeat button.