Vang Circular is the first outing from Timo van Luijk (La Scie Dorée, Af Ursin, Elodie) and Mark Harwood (Penultimate Press, Astor). Employing vibes, mellotron, natural reader, an iron ant, synth, metal pipes, slide guitar, and a double bass, these audacious souls conjure a wonky musical vision that gently peels away the familiar. The results are a surprising synthesis of the two individuals somewhat oppositional agendas. From the farthest reaches of the galaxy to the highest celestial plane, the core of this haunted and bewitching release exists as a spectre at the edge of time. Recorded over a weekend at Kulta Saha studio, Belgium in the summer of 2017.
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Tracklisting:
1. Alone 4:52
2. Armenia - 5:28
3. Myopia - 2:05
4. SXDF-NB1006-2 - 7:36
5. Peake Haus - 5:54
6. Crystal Shuffle - 13:24
Available as 320kbp MP3 or 24bit FLAC
Originally from Finland but now resident in Belgium, Timo van Luijk is an autodidact sound artist/composing improviser working with acoustic instruments (strings, wind, percussion) and various (sound) objects.
He started his musical excursions with some obscure local projects in the mid 80's and following sound studies/research he formed the experimental music/multimedia collective Noise-Maker's Fifes together with Geert Feytons in 1989. Simultaneously he slowly developed his personal musical activities as Af Ursin with regular releases since 1996.
Apart from his solo work he has done frequent collaborations with Christoph Heemann (In Camera) and Limpe Fuchs, Kris Vanderstraeten, Raymond Dijkstra (Asra), Andrew Chalk (Elodie), Frederik Croene and is member of the group Onde together with Greg Jacobs and Marc Wroblewski (both from Noise Maker's Fifes).
Mark Harwood (b. Melbourne) is a London based performer and recording artist working with a variety of sonic and performative elements. Under the guise of Astor he deploys a wide variety of techniques including field recording, musique concrete and electronics resulting in works that are developed as a means of bypassing the cliches imbedded within these disparate worlds in order to coerce a sound world which is simultaneously contemporary, foreign and engaging. Astor takes a magnifying glass to reality and unfurls it into uncanny audio essays. . His live performances encompass a variety of procedures incorporating the immediate surrounds where improvised actions yield spontaneous results leaving both performer and audience in unexpected predicaments, a state of mild hypnosis and potentially even laughter.
He has released four critically acclaimed recordings. His release Inland (2014) came second in the outer limits category for record of the year in The Wire’s 2014 summary. Astor has also made collaborative recordings with Graham Lambkin, Timo Van Luik and Matthew P. Hopkins.
Recent solo performances include New York (Blank Forms), London ( Cafe OTO, St John’s Church) Melbourne (Liquid Architecture), Berlin (NNOI Festival), Antwerp (Brusimelk Festival), Los Angeles (Human Resources). He has performed in collaboration with Áine O'Dwyer and Graham Lambkin at Counterflows, (Glasgow), Kraak (Brussels), Union Poole (New York) and Sonic Protest Festival (France).
