Aspen Edities

Program:

Frederik Leroux: solo guitar
Poor Isa (Ruben Machtelinckx and Frederik Leroux)
-
Fredrik Rasten: strands of lunar light release concert (with Ruben Machtelinckx)

From the album 'words were coming out our ears' by Graden/Agnas/Landin/Bromander

Johan Graden: piano
Nils Agnas: drums
Pär Ola Landin: bass
Vilhelm Bromander: bass

Artwork and copyright by Liesbeth Van Heuverswijn

I envision this music as emanating from a moon inhabited by otherworldly life forms and ecosystems; these sounds as evoking the moon’s topographies, beings, lunar rivers, and strands of light — as if this moon’s essence were itself sonic, vibrational matter.
Musically and acoustically, strands of lunar light departs from a set of tones corresponding to a confined harmonic series segment of a very low fundamental frequency: 5.15 hertz. Through twelve continuous sections, each employing various methods of activating openly tuned guitar strings, the music is sculpted from the twenty-four pitches corresponding to harmonics 24 through 47 of this fundamental frequency.
At times, the natural second (octave) harmonics of the open strings are activated and introduce a secondary, octave transposed version of the original harmonic...

In 2019, ‘porous structures’ was released, the first album by the quartet Machtelinckx/Badenhorst/Cools/Gouband. The album won the Klara for ‘Best Belgian Jazz CD’.
In September 2024, ‘porous structures II’ will be released, a new album by a quartet led by Ruben Machtelinckx, this time in the company of Fredrik Rasten, Frederik Leroux and again Toma Gouband.

What remains is the choice for acoustic and fragile sounds, comprehensible to the listener but with an underlying tension and complexity. New is the intertwining of acoustic guitars. While the first album played with silence, ‘porous structures II’ plays with textures. The melodic voice is exchanged for a group sound in which individuals are barely distinguishable. The classic roles in an ensemble are abandoned...

This here empty room
Frederik Leroux

‘This here empty room’ is a collection of thirteen miniature compositions for solo acoustic guitar and solo piano. Pieces i until vii are played by Frederik Leroux on steel-string acoustic guitar, pieces viii until xiii are played by pianist Heleen Van Haegenborgh.

This album is another exploration of the acoustic space, as you might expect from Leroux. What is new is the purely composed nature of the music, giving Leroux full control over the soundworld he wants to create. The music is intimate, quiet, small and slow. The pieces can almost be seen. The playing with light and darkness, opaqueness and translucency, makes the album a space. The recordings are very natural, prese...

Dance of the hermits
Karl Van Deun - guitar

In 1992, Karl Van Deun wrote a series of short pieces for solo guitar. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the music of Jimmy Wyble and his art of "two-line improvisation," a method of approaching guitar pieces from counterpoint. Bill Frisell was also constantly on his mind, as Van Deun was working on a thesis on the legendary jazz guitarist at the time.

To these influences he responded intuitively and he captured the musical atmosphere in typical Van Deun compositions. The music sounds exciting and personal. In addition to abstract characteristics, the pieces have clear influences from fingerpicking, blues and swing.

Now a selection was made from this fine series that has...