Haruki (LND008)
Haruki aka Boris Snauwaert lives and makes music in Gent, Belgium.
"For this album I wanted to create a raw, free-floating, and amorphous kind of music where all kinds of sounds (acoustic and digital, dirty and clean, sweet and irritating) cling together to make up an abstract but somehow organic tangle. There’s quite a bit of walking, breathing and ticking in these tracks. To me, the album feels like a walk through different types of spaces (be it cities, suburbs, non-spaces between countryside and the city, parks, houses or other kinds of buildings) with sounds floating in and out of hearing. Listening with headphones is recommended." – BS
CDR Edition of 100 + MP3
Available in the shop
"A dense yet refined collection, where intricate layers grow into surprisingly bare and minimal pieces, To Humble Nest is full of contradictions, but it is also a thoroughly enjoyable record, which shows Haruki as one of the rising talents of the genre." - Milk Factory
"I hear a piano, a fridge, a piano which also functions as a fridge, a dog trapped inside a piano which also functions as a fridge, Metal Machine Music performed by a swarm of bees, a gnat having its heartbeat taken, a folk band tumbling in the blades of a combine harvester, a robot idly surfing horror movies on TV, a picnic inside a Faraday cage, a distant distress signal (sent by the dog in the fridge, no doubt." - Mapsadasical
"US label The Land Of always creates one of the nicest packages in CDR land. Cardboard stock, full colour print work, with a nice design. Boris Snauwaert is the man behind Haruki, who has had a couple of releases on Kaspar Hauser Records, Rain Music and Corps-Morts Records, as well as doing a remix for Machinefabriek and My Brightest Diamond. On ‘To Humble A Nest’ he has nine pieces of field recordings, acoustic objects, electronic sounds and digital sounds, which he all threw on a computer’s hard disc and then starts to unfold them - or so it seems. Let’s say there are eight tracks, and they are all filled with sound, then Haruki will find the dialogue between those sounds. Sometimes it seems that sounds from one piece appear also in another, but perhaps I am imagining this. Haruki succeeds quite well in this dialogue. The music is quite vibrant and not silent throughout, although a piece like ‘If I Wrote You’ is a sparse violin like piece, followed by other two others pieces that are somewhat quieter too. Otherwise his methods are a bit Brume-like: make sure always something happens. Very nice release, which blends field recordings together with real instruments." (Frans de Waard - Vital Weekly)
Another wonderfully put together package and album from Land Of, this time coming from Belgian artist Haruki. I instantly liked the fact that there doesn’t seem to be an overarching theme to these works – they just are and exist as such. A selection of sound sources are used to create works that reflect the feeling of being in various different spaces and the form of each piece is such that you can enjoy them individually or together as a varied yet cohesive album. There’s a marvellous sense of a fine balance between the abstract and the melodic which really plays to the strengths of this style of music. One minute you’re listening to dislocated sound samples and mood-driven textures and the next you’re enjoying a soothingly relaxed and understated soundscape or drone that will ease you through. The play of these differing sounds is really what makes it for me and the added field recordings really give it a life and personality of its own. References are becoming more and more redundant in my opinion but if pushed I’d almost be inclined to say Janek Schaeffer, maybe some of the more organic Line releases and almost certainly the likes of and/OAR being good points of comparison. Again though, I feel referencing can be too limiting, but I’m aware that sometimes you need a starting point. Whatever I think you’ll want to check this out and enjoy its compelling blend for yourself. Top quality work from Land Of once again and, as you’d expect, a limited edition – of 100 copies I believe. - Smallfish
Ondanks zijn mooi palmares – eigen platen op o.a. Kaspar Hauser Records en remixes voor My Brightest Diamond, Au Revoir Simone, Machinefabriek en Yuko – blijft Haruki toch wat onder de radar in eigen land. Zijn nieuwste *‘To Humble A Nest’ *– prachtig uitgegeven trouwens – is gehuld in een nevel van duistere stofwolken van nummers, waar de gebruikelijke clicks, glitch of folkgitaren amper nog door twinkelen. Haruki maakt het zwart voor je ogen en neemt je mee op een nachtelijke trip door ondergrondse gangen van een vergeten metrolijn. De dof dreunende hartslag van een spookstad bepaalt de kadans, terwijl vaaglijk vertrouwde, maar toch onherkenbare geluiden onbehaaglijk tot je doorsijpelen. Adembenemend. (ndc)
Discography
ALBUMS
Birds And Other Machines, Kaspar Hauser Records (Split with SielveenbRiefman), 2006
Bending Wood, Rain Music, 2007
Haphazardly While Sitting, Corps-Morts records, 2008
SELECTED REMIXES:
‘We Were Sparkling”, My Brightest Diamond, Asthamatic Kitty
'Stofstuk’, Machinefabriek,
For full discography: http://www.myspace.com/haruki9
Contact: haruki.aband@gmail.com