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LP
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MPI 011LP
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$34.00
PREORDER
RELEASE DATE: 5/19/2023
Reissue, originally released in 1972. Joel Vandroogenbroeck was an arranger, conductor, producer, and, above all, a unique multi-instrumentalist in the world of music. The Belgian artist was also famous for being the only permanent member of the group Brainticket and the main promoter of its creativity, often renewed with the contribution of exotic instruments. At the dawn of the Seventies, this versatile musician began a parallel life as a composer of singular music libraries tailored to comment documentary images. L'immagine del suono was one of them, originally released by Italy's Flirt Records and now reissued on vinyl by Musica Per Immagini for the first time. This album circulated, however, unnoticed in a limited number of copies among insiders, only rediscovered later by fans, thus raising Joel Vandroogenbroeck as a real pioneer of ambient and new age music. It is appropriate to consider the twelve short-lived pieces of L'immagine del suono as a sort of continuous and visionary experiment, with the addition of electronic gasps, a strong dose of inevitable psychedelia, fragments of synthesized jazz, all coming from experiences both internal and external, hallucinatory and hedonistic. All of this combined creates a mysterious and abstract hybrid. Sonic raw material is sculpted with artisanal care, at times twisted and cryptic, characterized by a transversal irony, to the point that the interference of rock elements in the course of the set divert the listener's attention and momentarily interrupt the flow of consciousness. L'immagine del suono is a concentrated example of the avant-garde, free from categorization of any kind, developed in a non-commercial key and, equally, is drawn from a direct line via what was previously expressed within the folds of the then contemporary works of Brainticket.
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LP
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BONF 019LP
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Reissue, originally released in 1978. Brainticket was an obscure krautrock band born out of a '60s jazz group featuring Belgian born keyboardist Joël Vandroogenbroeck, based in Switzerland. The leader went for a fortunate solo career after the former group disbanded, reaching a cult status especially in Italy with a series of sought after libraries. Released in 1978 on Cenacolo, Images of Flute in Nature is pure magic translated in music. Conceived by Joel with a little help from vocalist Carole Muriel (an American performer already involved in Brainticket and Drum Circus), the album is literally a deep connection between kosmische music, ambient, and ethno-global rhythms.
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LP
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DC 773LP
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2021 release. 2021 release. "Far View is a compilation of tracks from Joel Vandroogenbroeck's series of library music releases for the Coloursound label -- a uniquely trippy catalog of music vignettes long overdue for their day in the library music sun, remastered from the original analog reels! The late Joel Vandroogenbroeck was among that rare breed of musician who defy all categorization, using music conventions to explore the far reaches of human and cosmic consciousness. After passing through the jazz and rock worlds from the 1950s through the 70s, Joel found new outlets for his expansive vision in the '80s with the Swiss library music label Coloursound. Far View draws tracks from these releases, which form a unique entry in the genre of library music. For the uninitiated, this is just one way to begin a brilliant musical trip through Vandroogenbroeck's undersung career . . . Vibing on the eclectic energies of the day, Vandroogenbroeck formed Brainticket, whose approach to composition fused jazz, rock, and a mélange of global musical traditions, combining a western rhythm section and analog synthesizers with an astonishing array of acoustic instruments; ethnic flutes, sitar, harp, kalimba and all manner of percussion. Steeped in diverse approaches of playing and listening, Brainticket drew from prog rock and psych, traditional sounds and minimalist music, all of which passed through their hands like the tributaries that formed the basis of what would soon be known as New Age music. In the late 1970s, Vandroogenbroeck began composing for sound libraries, with recordings to be used as underlay music in films, radio and television. Gunter Greffenius' Coloursound Library was formed in 1979 with an inclusive vision of music, including experimental, progressive rock, and some of the earliest examples of ambient music -- styles not well represented in other libraries. Coloursound gave Joel the freedom to create music in any style or genre, and over the next decade-plus, he embarked on a musical journey that is unmatched anywhere in the world of library music. Working under the pseudonyms VDBVDB, Joel, and Eric Vann, his output on Coloursound is some of his most sublime and otherworldly -- ranging from dark electronics to imagined music of the ancient past to ethereal ambient sounds of the future, which makes sense, as Joel's records were always ahead and in and out of their time . . . Curated by David Hollander, whose Unusual Sounds album and book of the same name delightfully explore the library music world, Far View draws from ten of Joel's Coloursound albums with lovely cohesion. Featuring brilliantly remastered sound, liner notes from David Hollander, album art designed by Robert Beatty and reproductions of the Coloursound album jackets, Far View is an entry point to Joel Vandroogenbroek's mind-bending body of work --sonic soma to expand your consciousness and vibrate with the cosmos."
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ZORN 019LP
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2015 repress. Biomechanoid is the classic 1980 album by composer and flutist Joel Vandroogenbroeck. It's 1980, in Munich, Germany. Upstart production music label Coloursound Library releases their debut album. Capitalizing on the success of Ridley Scott's Alien film, the label dropped Biomechanoid, featuring cover art commissioned by H.R. Giger -- whose horrific Necronom IV lithograph served as the basis for the design of Alien -- and the music of the relatively unknown Joel Vandroogenbroeck. Comprised of bleak, cinematic synth soundscapes and percussion, the album served as an inaugural calling card for what would be a decade of dizzying solo releases by Vandroogenbroeck for Coloursound, running the gamut from Mesopotamian ethno-folk to synth sequencer funk to electro drum breaks to in-utero ambient delights. Though the Belgian-born Vandroogenbroeck, 74, may not be a household name, in an ideal world, he would be. As the founder, flautist, harpist, sitar player and keyboardist of the seminal acid-fried Swiss psych outfit Brainticket, he spearheaded the group's three main (and collectible) releases in the early '70s -- Cottonwood Hill, Celestial Ocean, and Psychonaut. Combining a love of exotic instruments coupled with mind-bending out-of-body excursions, the ever-changing collective developed something of a cult following throughout Europe and earned a reputation as one of the heavier psych outfits on the circuit -- which was something of a double-edged sword. While their experimental sound resonated with hippies everywhere, it didn't with the authorities, who associated the act with heavy drug consumption and subsequently began a ban of their music, especially the Psychonaut album, if for the title alone. After that bitter brush with censorship, the group quietly disbanded in 1972. After the dissolution of Brainticket, Vandroogenbroeck departed for the island of Bali with the intent of learning to build and play the gamelan -- an ensemble of primarily percussion instruments from Indonesia. It would become yet another weapon in his ever-growing arsenal of exotic instruments: he was already proficient on the sitar, harp, kalimba, assorted percussion oddities and all woodwinds by this point. Vandroogenbroeck became so enraptured with the frenetic sound of the gamelan that he subsequently left the tropics to start up a joged bumbung (a variation on a gamelan) band back in Switzerland. While playing small festivals and civic events with this group, Joel began to slowly gravitate towards the synth-heavy Kraut sounds of artists like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze at the same time. And once he began dabbling with oscillators, he never turned back. After inking a library deal around this time with the nascent Coloursound label, who gave him complete creative control, Vandroogenbroeck began turning out releases at a rapid rate, often three to five a year, and under a variety of aliases like V.D.B. Joel, J.V.D.B, and Eric Vann. Starting with the desolate synth drone of Biomechanoid, he continued to expand his sound palette while on Coloursound, moving from early arpeggiators on Computer Blossoms to percussive sound collage on Birth of Earth; and from Oberheim DMX drum breaks on Video Games & Data Movements to Apple II ambient programming on Digital Project. Biomechanoid stands after all these years as an album full of dark, strange, disturbing soundscapes, the obscure side of Brainticket, proving how Joel was still a creative artist. Matte finishing. Double-sided insert. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl.
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