Catalog

Armed with a set of field recorders, Dijf traveled to every urban and rural corner of Indonesia in the spring of ’17. As a contemporary incarnation of ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax he collected an impressive repertory of recordings, commissioned by Europalia and KAAP. Kacapi, Kendang, Angklung, Calung or Gamelan are not the names of indigenous tropical diseases, but those of local instruments that Dijf encountered on his adventurous musical quest.

For two weeks the American expert ethnographer Palmer Keen stood by Dijf through his total immersion into the island’s colourful culture and rich, ceremonial traditions. On his return to Belgium, Dijf headed straight back into the studio with the gathered material and invited some of his musical soulmates to put the icing on the cake. It is no coincidence that the three guests – Nathan Daems, Filip Vandebril and Simon Segers – are all part of Black Flower, a band that famously flirts with Oriental sounds.

From hours and hours of field recordings, Dijf distilled nine psychedelic pieces which ride on waves of ecstasy and trance, and bridge the gap between two worlds.