Today, May 13th R&S Records have released Lakker’s new Maxi-EP, Struggle & Emerge. Struggle & Emerge was created as part of the very first RE:VIVE Session. Which seeks to bring together archives and electronic musicians to change the way people hear the past. The album spans 8 tracks and captures the tumultuous relationship that that Dutch have with water. For the album, Lakker could only sample a curated set of archival material provided by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision that pertained to the same theme.
To give insight into this esoteric topic, RE:VIVE and Sound and Vision have teamed up to produce a documentary and an interactive digital long read.
Lakker started this collaboration with next to zero knowledge of the topic. Since RE:VIVE is all about context, the duo went on a trip around the Netherlands to meet experts and visit locations as well as diving deep into the Sound and Vision collection. The documentary shows how the duo took this knowledge they gained during this time and channeled it into the mechanical and aggressive EP.
The documentary was directed, edited and produced by Amsterdam based Studio Lin Davis.
Interactive Digital Long Read
The long read explores and deconstructs five tracks from “Struggle & Emerge” shedding light onto Lakker’s creative process as it goes. Tracing the tracks back to their archival roots, and the story these historical films and sounds tell about the “Dutch and their water” the story explores where Dara Smith and Ian McDonnell’s inspiration came from, what struck them about this quintessentially Dutch story and how exactly all of it ended up in their album.
You can visit the long read here. It was produced by RE:VIVE and The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.
Image via Nationaal Archief CC BY