Releases commissioned by RE:VIVE
Mattheis / Ranie Ribeiro – Het jaar rond
For the second time, Nous’klaer and The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’s RE:VIVE initiative have teamed up for a split 12″ featuring two new film scores of Nous’klaer staple, Mattheis and newcomer Ranie Ribeiro. Each artist was given half the film to compose for, resulting in two sonically disparate pieces that are emotionally twinned.
V/A – SCORES III (Dekmantel)
RE:VIVE and Dekmantel team up for the third time to pair modern electronic talent with Dutch archival footage. The third EP in the Scores series sees Interstellar Funk + visual artist Sjoerd Martens and Italian producer Guenter Råler create innovative, modular soundscapes to the graceful visual arts unearthed from the Sound and Vision archives.
V/A – SCORES II (Dekmantel)
For Dekmantel Festival 2019, The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision’s RE:VIVE initiative and Dekmantel teamed up for the third time to invite four artists to bring fresh music to a curation of Dutch archival films. As debuted live in Amsterdam’s Eye Filmmuseum, 2019 featured new scores from Safe Trip eclectic left-of-centre DJ / producer, Max Abysmal, 80s pastiche, keyboard wizard duo, Lamellen, Italian contemporary composer and saxophonist, Laura Agnusdei and heavy-hitter, Identified Patient. 2019’s films were as diverse as the invited artists. Three of the films come Academy Award winning Dutch producer, Nico Crama whose collection is held by The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision while Comeback (Poppenfilm) was made by amateur Dutch filmmaker, Otto Laan.
Tammo Hesselink / Thessa Torsing – Ballet Mécanique / Zeekasteel (Nous’klaer)
RE:VIVE & Nous’klaer present two scores by Thessa Torsing (upsammy) and Tammo Hesselink. Torsing’s is a 27-minute piece, composed for a collage of archival footage of the Dutch ship MS Oranje. The short film explores the lifecycle of the ship, from production to usage and to the fire that ultimately destroyed it. Hesselink’s is a 17-minute piece for the pioneering short film, Ballet Mécanique (1924), a rigid composition of sharp notes and twisted drum patterns that hypnotically evolve accompanying the film’s staccato rhythm.
Joshua Sabin – Sutarti (Subtext)
On Sutarti Joshua Sabin draws influence from the compositional structures and psychoacoustic properties that exist within early Lithuanian folk music, exploring the emotional potency of the human voice through the manipulation of elements of archival recordings. Obtaining access to the folk music archives of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre Ethnomusicology Archive from the outset of this project, Sabin felt a particular resonance with the extensive library of vocal recordings and specifically the song forms of the Sutartinė. Derived from the Lithuanian verb ‘Sutarti’ – to be ‘in agreement’, ‘to attune’ – Sutartinės are a Lithuanian form of Schwebungsdiaphonie – a distinct canonic song style consisting of two or more voices that purposefully clash creating extremely precise dissonances and the phenomena of aural ‘beating’.
Done in collaboration with the Lithuanian Archivist’s Association and the Baltic Audiovisual Archival Council
V/A – Rotterdam (MORD Records)
Together with Bas Mooy’s stellar, Rotterdam-based, techno record label MORD Records, RE:VIVE and Mooy, invited 14 producers to turn archival field recordings of Rotterdam into a sonic journey through the city’s tumultuous and triumphant 20th century. Featuring tracks by Bas Mooy, Charlton, Nadia Struiwigh, Nene H, SØS Gunver Ryber, Kaltés, Orphx, Thanos Hana, Rrose, Antenes and more, Rotterdam is MORD’s most sonically adventurous LP to date.
V/A – SCORES I (Dekmantel)
RE:VIVE and Dekmantel invited four local artists to breathe new life into four archival films from the Sound and Vision and Eye Filmmuseum archives. Jordan GCZ, Suzanne Kraft, Parrish Smith and upsammy were all assigned short animated films dating back to 1921. The films and their new scores debuted at EYE on August 2nd as part of Dekmantel Festival 2018. Featuring new compositions by Parrish Smith, Jordan gcz, upsammy and Suzanne Kraft.
Clap! Clap! – Dig! Delve! Damn! Dutch Archive Edition (Black Acre Recordings)
Clap! Clap! – DIG! DELVE! DAMN! (Dutch Archive Edition) strips down his bombastic, multilayered take on global rhythms, jazz, and footwork, letting the samples take center stage. Drawing on the archive’s recordings from Afghanistan, Suriname, Zambia, Bali, Libya, India, Uzbekistan & Morocco, accompanying and accentuating them with his singular voice.
Done as part of the Unlocking Sounds collaboration with the Research Center for Material Culture and Tropenmuseum. Three artists were invited to create new albums based on the KIT collection of ethnographic field recordings held at The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.
Ash Koosha – Chimera EP (Ninja Tune)
Chimera EP, the follow up to Ash Koosha’s 2016 acclaimed LP, I AKA I (Ninja Tune) sees the Iranian born, London based producer digging into the audio archive of Amsterdam’s Tropenmuseum bringing the rhythms ingrained in his Iranian heritage to the fore and fusing them with his fractured, mind-bending style to reimagine centuries worth of musical tradition into a singular journey.
Chimera, the mythical Greek creature represents something hoped for but ultimately illusory and unattainable rightly so for Koosha, Chimera EP is a fantastical conception of journeying through a bazaar where each turn unlocks a new alley of chaos, serenity, tension and relief.
Musically, just like the old 13cm tapes whose samples make up the EP it is warm and textured; a natural sounding work that rounds the jagged edges which made I AKA I so visceral impressing a softer hue upon Koosha’s unmistakable sonic palate that invites a listener into the maze beckoning to follow deeper.
Done as part of the Unlocking Sounds collaboration with the Research Center for Material Culture and Tropenmuseum. Three artists were invited to create new albums based on the KIT collection of ethnographic field recordings held at The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision.
V/A – 010 (Fog Mountain Records)
010 is a 14 track compilation done in collaboration with Fog Mountain records where we invited producers to compose new tracks only using archival field recording of Rotterdam from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision archive. The ending compilation features a broad range of sounds and styles from deep ambience by Roly Porter, Lwa and Oaktree (Adriaan de Roover), thudding techno from Bas Mooy, Drvg Cvltvre, Consulate and Nukubus, and experimental club tracks by Mill Burray, FIS, Meta and BZGRL
The album was accompanied by a photo-book where the artists curated photos of Rotterdam from the National Archives of the Netherlands
V/A – Damrak (Fog Mountain Records)
With this RE:VIVE release 10 producers used the sounds of Amsterdam as captured by archival field recordings and TV broadcasts from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision to generate a soundtrack to the city. Each track is its own impression of the city and the source material. From the industrial homage to the old NDSM Werf by Swarm Intelligence, the sonic aerial view of the city through an emergency siren by Arad, or Know V.A.’s beat-driven journey through the Amsterdam Metro Riots of 1975, each track represents the artists’ impressions of a city that’s been bombarded with change, stagnation, success and strife.
The album was accompanied by a photo-book where the artists curated photos of Amsterdam from the National Archives of the Netherlands
Lakker – Struggle & Emerge (R&S Records)
The one that started it all: Lakker’s Struggle & Emerge.
Lakker were commissioned by the RE:VIVE Initiative to create a new conceptual work solely sampling field recording, TV and radio broadcasts from the Dutch National AV archive, The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The curated material provided all related to and was representative of the theme the “Dutch and water”. The resulting 8 track release “Struggle and Emerge” is a tense soundtrack to the machine driven mid-20th century that captures the complex relationship between the Dutch and the water that surrounds them- unyielding, colossal, industrial.
The album was accompanied by a documentary and interactive website.