TEXTURE POINT, by TONUS

TEXTURE POINT

by TONUS

supported by

	/

Buy All 5 TONUS albums for only 45 EUR + postage and get TONUS' Intermediate Obscurities III Live in Poznan for free.

ships out within 10 days

€45 EUR or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Comes in a beautiful gatefold sleeve, designed to our house style by Rutger Zuydervelt. Liner notes by Guy Peters.

NOTE : all postage is calculated on one item per order so if the postage, when ordering more than one album, is being calculated higher than originally intented or what will cost you in the end, we’ll of course refund you the overbilled shipping costs.

Includes unlimited streaming of TEXTURE POINT via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 10 days

€10 EUR or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

€7 EUR or more
VIP membership

Join now to receive all the new music a new wave of jazz creates, including 10 back-catalog releases, delivered instantly to you via the Bandcamp app for iOS and Android. You’ll also get access to supporter-only exclusives. Learn more.

Join Now €35 EUR/year or more
Full Digital Discography

51

releases

Get all 51 a new wave of jazz releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of DISENGAGE, The Tape, DANDELION, THE ART OF CRASHING, STOCHASTIC REGIONS, GOOD TO BE BACK IN REALITY, VISTAS, TRANSLUCENCE, and 43 more. , and , .
Excludes supporter-only releases.

Purchasable with gift card

€279 EUR or more (25% OFF)

	1.	Texture I 09:04
	2.	Texture II 11:49
	3.	Point A 11:38
	4.	Texture III 20:04

about

Dirk Serries : acoustic guitar
Benedict Taylor : viola
Martina Verhoeven : piano

Performed, recorded, mixed and mastered at the Sunny Side Inc. Studio, Anderlecht (Belgium) on December 9th 2017.

Sleeve notes : Guy Peters.
Layout : Rutger Zuydervelt
Executive label director : Dirk Serries.

credits

released October 13, 2018

“Usually when someone says a thing is too simple, they’re saying that certain familiar things aren’t there.” - Donald Judd (1965)

Minimal art is often presented as an act of simplification, a field in which nothing much happens and lesser (or even lazy) artists can have a field day. However, it is both in the visual arts and in music, perhaps one of the most misunderstood movements. Minimal artists not only sought out a certain core essence, but leading artists and theorists, such as Donald Judd, also offered a reaction against the extravagant focus on the subjective by the abstract expressionists, and proposed a new way of looking, experiencing and listening. As such, it was so much more than the much coveted minimal lifestyle that focused on reduced possessions and wanting less. It was not just an ethical thing.

The minimal creed did not remove the artist-creator from the picture, but the focus returned to the material at hand and the composers often made their point by limiting the material, using repetition and basic resources/rules to construct new music. The classic narratives and climactic structures were abandoned in favor of gradual transformations, slow movements or even pieces that went on and on, seemingly devoid of any change or climax.

Even though he has usually been associated with different styles/genres (ambient, drones, avant-garde and, in the past few years, also free improvisation), Dirk Serries has always been a minimalist at heart. He is an artist whose journeys rarely involve the ingredients most people have grown so accustomed to, which is why many might even think his music is underdeveloped or lacks something. They are wrong. Early on Serries already understood there are different, challenging ways to play and compose.

The ambient chapter has officially been closed, but the Tonus cycle has shifted the focus. The acoustic music Serries creates with his partner Martina Verhoeven and several guests may seem deliberately slow and unflinchingly stark, and this interpretation with British viola player and improviser Benedict Taylor is no exception. Of course these musicians are not (only) interested in meeting expectations and offering the ‘familiar things’ Judd referred to. On the contrary: their music making is an investigative act, an exploration with limited means and rules, but it is one that comes with a responsibility and also expects a commitment from the listener. The slow strumming, securely distributed keystrokes and unusual treatment of the strings are offered in a myriad of constellations and variations that raise your awareness of form and material, but also remind you of the force of silence and space.

You might not get the extended melodic lines, easy ecstasy and familiar harmonies that are so often at the core of Western music, but you will be rewarded with a challenging and different view, in which the autonomy of the music (sounds, textures, space) is given prominence. It is, simply put, not about passively hearing, but actively listening. This is not new in itself, but the way these musicians rework this idea is definitely intriguing and rewarding.

Guy Peters 2018

license

about

a new wave of jazz

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance”

a haven for the free and wilful. featuring music that originates from a fascination for free improvisation and modern minimal music. ... more