It doesn’t take long on Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 before you’re in the room. You can hear voices in the crowd as Dutch instrumental improvisationalists DUNDDW begin to unfold their set, soon enough to be joined by Scott “Dr. Space” Heller (Øresund Space Collective, Doctors of Space, Black Moon Circle, solo work, etc.) expanding the trio as a four-piece with a guest spot on synth after about 12 minutes in, some comment and a chuckle as things mellow and space way, way out thereafter in the jam’s dreamier midsection, and so on.

The LP-length single-song set is out today as an independent release from DUNDDW, for whom it follows a 2023 split with Kombynat Robotron (review here) and their 2022 debut, Flux (review here), and the occasion that brought Heller from Portugal to the Netherlands was Black Moon Circle touring to support their 2023 LP, the expansive Leave the Ghost Behind (review here). Held weekly in the smaller room at the legendary Effenaar in Eindhoven (and no, it’s not just legendary because I saw Motorpsycho there one time, though that’d be enough in my head), ‘Club Void’ is a series of shows put together by the venue’s Robert Schaeffer as well as Paul van Berlo of the Into the Void Festival (also Loud Noise Booking) and Peter van Elderen, formerly the vocalist of Peter Pan Speedrock. All of these are endorsements that, existentially speaking, are good to have.

But DUNDDW have been pretty well encouraged since their outset bringing bassist Huibert der Weduwen and drummer Peter Dragt of Bismut together with Mt. Echo‘s Gerben Elburg on guitar for pointedly exploratory purposes, and the flow they conjure throughout Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 presents a vivid picture of why for listeners who haven’t had the chance to actually see them. The cosmic adventure is mellow in spirit on the whole, but communal in a way that feels active, and inviting in tone and groove. Dropping nearly to silence at times, it represents well the conversation happening on stage as the sounds were being made, while allowing the audience and the LP-listener space to put themselves in the moment. In the initial build-up, DUNDDW work their way into a voluminous build, guitar signaling volume changes as they ooze past nine minutes, and when Dr. Space hops on board after (or maybe during) the ensuing wash a short time later, the proceedings get duly hyperspatial.

They drift and reorient, finding a new path with the four of them on the stage, and gradually the float becomes more driving, pushing into intense space rock before noising out behind the waves of Heller‘s synth with Dragt‘s crash and tom fills marking the end of that movement circa 26:30 and the beginning of the final cycle of ebbs and flows, more solidified in their purpose than they were only minutes before, but clearly having learned from the second part of the jam. Keep an ear out for bells, which you might just hear in that last stretch if they, it, or anything actually exists, and know that DUNDDW save their most fervent push for the crescendo, and that the experience of getting there is as much the point as the big finish and ringout itself.

Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 isn’t intended to be some grand statement. At its heart, it’s a bootleg-style outing that captures one night among many DUNDDW went on stage and did what they do. This, coupled with the Heller collaboration that stands it out among other gigs, is the appeal. It would be ridiculous if DUNDDW did some hyper-produced live record. They might as well go to a studio and jam out an new LP if they’re going to spend the time and money. But here, they express the sense of journey from one end of this massive piece to the other, while also conveying their root ethic of commitment to organically capturing the creative moment as it happens. For that, Live @ Club Void Effenaar 23-3-23 offers resonance even beyond that of its echoing final tones.

Again, it’s out today, so by all means, dig in below and enjoy. Some PR wire-type info follows:

Friday, February 23rd, we (Dutch improv instrumental spacerock band DUNDDW) will digitally release a 40 minute jam we played last year at Club Void in The Netherlands. Around 17 minutes in Dr. Space – aka Scott Heller from Øresund Space Collective, Black Moon Circle a.o. – joins in on the jam.

Order link: https://dunddw.bandcamp.com/album/dunddw-dr-space-live-club-void-effenaar-23-03-2023

Says DUNDDW: ” We really felt the flow during this jam. It builds up in three waves, with Dr. Space joining in about halfway through with some great synths, bells and spacy genius.”

Says Dr. Space: “I’ve been friends with the guys in Bismut, and DUNDDW invited me to jam with them and it was fun. Sure we will do it again. Great guys.”

DUNDDW is a 100% improvising, instrumental spacerock/krautrock trio from The Netherlands, with members from Bismut and Mt. Echo. Their first full length album Flux was released in November 2022. In June 2023 they released a split vinyl LP with German krautrock band Kombynat Robotron. February 2024 marks the release of a live jam they played in 2023, with Dr. Space joining in.

DUNDDW =
Peter Dragt – Drums
Huibert der Weduwen – Bass
Gerben Elburg – Guitars

DUNDDW on Facebook

DUNDDW on Instagram

DUNDDW on Bandcamp

Øresund Space Collective website

Øresund Space Collective on Bandcamp

Two bands, two sides, three jams. Kombynat Robotron and DUNDDW, from Germany and the Netherlands, respectively, offer their 37-minute/three-song split LP through Spinda Records (SP), Sunhair Music (DE), Echodelick Records (US) and Weird Beard Records (UK), and not to dwell so much on numbers, but yes, that is more record labels involved than there are songs on the release. As regards a title, I don’t know if it’s official, but the cover says Split LP, and that’s good enough as far as I’m concerned, and it’s fitting enough since, yes, that’s what it is, and being instrumental, both bands seem content enough to leave words at a minimum.

Kiel-based four-piece Kombynat Robotron — also stylized with Cyrillic letters: КОМВУИАТ ЯОВОТЯОИ — have been on a heavy psychedelic spree since their first outings (note the plural) in 2018, and they take side A with “Gamma” (7:34) and “Delta” (7:31), while side B goes to Nijmegen trio DUNDDW, with members of Bismut and Mt. Echo. The latter are closer to their origin point, having issued their first full-length in late-2022’s Flux (review here), but in addition to a shared aversion toward singers at least in the context of their own projects, the two acts share the improvisational ethic, and as DUNDDW unfold “VIII” (21:59) across side B, the unifying goal of Split LP is palpable as one of exploration.

There’s a bit of freakout here and there in “Gamma” and in the earlier going of “VIII,” DUNDDW‘s Peter Dragt just kind of starts to go nuts on drums and that energy becomes a build by itself until after the halfway point when they bring it back down, but serenity abounds otherwise; both bands foster an active forward reach amid miraculously unpretentious cosmic drift, harnessing the creativity of a fleeting moment and capturing it as it happened.

The tagline for the split is ‘100% improvised psych-kraut music from Germany and The Netherlands,’ and that may or may not be true — not sure why anyone would lie about that, but it’s happened before — the sounds fostered speak to the intention anyhow. I’m not arguing, in other words. Kombynat Robotron fade in on a cymbal wash for “Gamma,” but soon the guitar establishes the sunshiny central figure of the piece and they’re underway in a somewhat surprisingly song-ish manner. Mellow grunge in space? Post-whatever whatever?

Such interstellar krautrock pastoralia is set to a steady roller of a groove, and fluidity holds as they turn about a minute in — there must have been a head signal there or some such — to a more upbeat section. Guitarists James Ihnen and Richard Schröder, bassist Claas Ogorek and drummer Thomas Handschick are locked in from the outset, and whether they had some idea of what they wanted to do, or “Gamma” is cut out of a longer jam or what, the conversation happening between the members of the band, instrumentally speaking, is sharp. If they’re keeping it loose in any way, it’s conceptually, but there’s a linear build happening in “Gamma” that peaks just after six minutes in, and from there they noodle out on a long fade, and that hints at the very least toward a sense of direction rather than just showing up, plugging in and hitting it.

Not a complaint. Their “Delta” begins more subdued but has the same shimmer in the lower-mixed guitar and shifts after laying down that initial fuzzy breadth to a not-quite-motorik bit of push, fostering classic space rock vibes in its build en route to bringing that same lead guitar forward in the still-shimmying crescendo. They sound like they could keep going into perpetuity, but balance and the limitations of physical media require otherwise, so Kombynat Robotron fade to let DUNDDW start “VIII” with bass and drums.

Is it the eighth recording the band has done? Possible. On Flux, the three-piece featured the 22-minute “VI” and had two parts of the at-least-four-part “VII,” so “VIII” would be next in that succession, and it’s not unreasonable to think that guitarist Gerben Elburg, bassist Huibert der Weduwen and drummer Peter Dragt either recorded “VIII” then or are simply following the Karma to Burn example of numerical (if Roman numerals) ordering their songs. Ups and downs to that approach, as with anything, but most importantly, the chemistry that DUNDDW so readily displayed on Flux is to be found on the Split LP as well, whether it’s the proggy bassline and jazz-style business of the drumming or the way the guitar seems to inhabit a space of its own, weaving along with the rhythm as it grows more intense early on but keeping an overarching calmness via its tonality.

Dragt is on the toms by the time they’re four minutes in, and part of the journey becomes the bumps and jabs of the bass and the steady punctuation of the snare and the guitar moves closer to a wash as they approach the six-minute mark. It’s like you can hear them digging in. Elburg doesn’t miss the opportunity to freak out, and soon enough, Dragt is following suit on cymbals, resolving in a gallop that der Weduwen seems only too happy to complement. They draw it back down somewhat after seven minutes, but they’re nowhere near finished as they push farther and farther into improvised space ambience.

The hi-hat is still tense keeping time for a while after everything else calms and the guitar goes to sparse melodic hum — by then it’s the snare shuffling underneath — but the movement is never completely gone, so as they grow subtly more energetic, it’s easy to follow along. At 14:45, they begin in earnest the build back to full-volume, and the swirl, the push and the wash all come together in righteous cacophony for a crescendo before the inevitable denouement.

DUNDDW end on a fade, but “VIII” is basically done anyhow, with some studio noise underscoring the in-the-room-as-it-happened feel of the Split LP as a whole. I don’t know whose idea it was to put these two acts together, but cheers. That Kombynat Robotron and DUNDDW could have so much in common on paper and still be so distinct in their respective takes results in a split that emphasizes how identifiable each of their styles is. Their unity of purpose is enhanced, not contrasted, by their similarities as well as the differences between them.

Kombynat Robotron & DUNDDW, Split LP (2023)

DUNDDW on Facebook

DUNDDW on Instagram

DUNDDW on Bandcamp

Kombynat Robotron on Facebook

Kombynat Robotron on Instagram

Kombynat Robotron on Bandcamp

Spinda Records on Facebook

Spinda Records on Instagram

Spinda Records on Bandcamp

Spinda Records website

Sunhair Music website

Spinda Records made three signing announcements today. That’s not a minor day in the life of a record label. In addition to picking up Loma Baja in conjunction with Lay Bare, Echodelick and Clostridium, the Spanish imprint sent word individually of having picked up Germany’s Kombynat Robotron and the Netherlands’ DUNDDW — both specialists in exploratory and improvisational psych, the latter a newer act — who’ll release a split LP through Spinda and Sunhair Music.

I could go on about Spinda‘s expanding reach, the flexibility that collaboration provides on all levels, and how that and the vitality in the respective approaches of Kombynat Robotron of DUNDDW are metaphors for each other — oh what we can accomplish when we open our minds, etc. — but you know all that and the bottom line is the same as ever in that it’s more cool tunes incoming. I’ll note as well that there was a press quote in the info below, from me, but I edited it out. If you’re reading this sentence right now you’ve already seen enough of my blabbing for one day.

Again, this was too separate announcements that I’ve mashed together since they’re sharing the release, but here it is off the PR wire:

SPINDA RECORDS – NEW BAND ANNOUNCEMENTS – DUNDDW & KOMBYNAT ROBOTRON

We’re so happy to share with y’all some exciting news: German psych-kraut-rockers Kombynat Robotron are joining our roster to put out their new album at some point before the Summer. So far we only can tell you that this album will be shared with another band that we’ll be announcing a bit later today; and it will be released through Spinda Records (Spain) and Sunhair Music (Germany).

Currently formed by Jannes (guitars, synths, vocals), Claas (bass) and Tommy (drums, percussion), the band started jamming in 2018 and since then they stuck to it as their way of creating music, so it feels as unique as their live shows. The robotronic music is based on repetitive patterns, but featuring a wide range of influences, such as krautrock, space rock and psychedelia.

Our catalogue reference SDR18101 had to be some special and therefore we embraced this project with two completely different ways of understanding improvised psychedelia. We hope you enjoy it!

—

Today’s a non-stop when it comes to announcements… If a bit less than one hour ago we told you about one of the two bands sharing our catalogue reference SDR10101, here’s the second one: DUNDDW, from The Netherlands.

Featuring Peter Dragt and Huibert der Weduwen from Bismut on drum and bass and Gerben Elburg from MT Echo on guitars, this power trio is a 100% improvising and instrumental band moving somewhere in between space rock and kraut-rock.

Remember that this split album will be out at some point before the Summer through a collaboration (another one) between Sunhair Music (Germany) and Spinda Records (Spain).

Please join us welcoming DUNDDW to the Spinda Records family.

http://www.facebook.com/DUNDDW
https://www.instagram.com/dunddw/
https://dunddw.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/KombynatRobotron
https://www.instagram.com/kombynat_robotron/
https://kombynatrobotron.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/SpindaRecords
https://www.instagram.com/spindarecords
https://spindarecords.bandcamp.com/
https://www.spindarecords.com/

http://sunhair-music.de/

DUNDDW, Flux (2022)

Kombynat Robotron, Dickfehler Studio Treffen 2 (2022)

It was covered here last year as well, but just as a refresher: GockelScream is a private festival — if you want to go, you need to write for tickets — put together at the behest of ElbSludgeBooking and held in a secret location in Dürrröhrsdorf-Dittersbach, Germany. And why would such a thing be covered? Well first, because I think it’s awesome and if the notion of attending a private fest with however few other people fortunate enough to do so doesn’t pique your imagination, then the international reach of the lineup hopefully will. Take a look at the day splits below. You’ve got bands from Germany and Austria, of course, but also Israel, the US, Sweden, Poland, France and the Netherlands. For what’s basically a birthday party, that’s some significant reach.

Details, if you want ’em, are available by emailing ElbSludgeBooking, and while no, I don’t think this is going to be the hugest event of the year, I also don’t think it’s trying to be. This is something for friends or those willing to be friends, and if that’s you, then I hope you go and make friends and have a great time watching killer bands. You got Temple Fang and Bees Made Honey in the Vein Tree (among others) playing on the same day. Ecstatic Vision and Clouds Taste Satanic meeting up (maybe touring together?), and Deathchant, Karkara, Moonstone and DUNDDW on the last day with a slot still open. Got until May to fill it and there are a ton of acts on the road then around Desertfest and the rest of the Spring festival season. Seems to me there probably won’t be a problem finding someone, it’s just a question of waiting to see who it is.

This is the kind of thing that, if I had all the money in the universe, I’d both host and attend on the regular. Maybe with a different poster, but you get the idea.

From the PR wire:

Gockelscream #4.0

May 26-29 – Dürrröhrsdorf-Dittersbach

Gockelscream #4 will go down in Dürrröhrsdorf-Dittersbach from 26. to 29.05.2023.

So here are the day splits:

Friday: Ecstatic Vision (USA), Clouds taste satanic (USA), Black Smoke (PL), Hypnotic floor (A)

Saturday: The Great Machine (ISR), Temple Fang (NL), Stew (SWE), Bees made honey in the vein tree (GER), Love your witch (ISR)

Sunday: Deathchant (USA), Karkara (FR), Moonstone (PL), DUNDDW (NL)+ slot open still

Line up:

Our goal for GockelScream is always to make it just like a big party with great music. We try to come up with a one-of-a-kind line-up with bands that are not in the normal concert circuit.. Some of the bands play for the first time in our area or even in Germany. This year we wanted to get some more heaviness into the mix too because we are Elb”SLUDGE”booking, okay?

The location:

Last year we had to move the location for the fest and quickly found the perfect match for our purposes. The place in Dürrröhrsdorf-Dittersbach lies in a small valley, next to a small river. It’s a private property and the people there are just super supportive and share our DIY-attitude. We have plenty of space there for lotsa people, camping, 2 stages and the infamous Rattenbar. We couldn’t be more happy.

How to get in:

Write a mail to gockelscream (at) elbsludge.de and you will get all the information you need.

Event page: https://facebook.com/events/1338937726922664/

https://www.facebook.com/Elbsludgebooking/
https://www.instagram.com/elbsludgebooking/

Ecstatic Vision, “You Got it or You Don’t” live at Duna Jam 2022

This gets pretty heavy, pretty nasty. Then it kind of gets pretty. What happened was I knew I wanted to start with Basalt Shrine because that’s just too killer a beginning to pass up. But I was barely two days into the Quarterly Review and I knew I didn’t want to do a whole show based on that, so I just kind of went from Basalt Shrine forward on a line of extreme sludge of varying kinds, and that was fun for a while. When I started stumbling coming up with inclusions off the top of my head, I decided to switch gears.

That’s where you see the second voice break. I was going to put it at the top of the second hour but figured screw it. I wanted to play Indian and Wren and KVLL, so I did. And then I jump on, announce the change happening, and jump off. I didn’t even really end the show, just “here’s something else” and done. That was a little liberating, if I’m honest. I feel like I have to say hi, thanks, thanks to Gimme, explain what The Obelisk is to anyone who doesn’t know (which I assume is everyone), then thanks again and see you in two weeks. Felt good to skip even a little of that formality/formula.

I don’t think I’ll be rewriting how I do the show entirely, but I apparently needed something different, and that’s what I got.

Thanks for listening if you make it. Thanks for reading if you see this.

The Obelisk Show airs 5PM Eastern today on the Gimme app or at: http://gimmemetal.com.

Full playlist:

The Obelisk Show – 01.06.23 (VT = voice track)

The Obelisk Show on Gimme Metal airs every Friday 5PM Eastern, with replays Sunday at 7PM Eastern. Next new episode is Jan. 6 (subject to change). Thanks for listening if you do.

Gimme Metal website

The Obelisk on Facebook

Given that all-caps, all-improv jammers DUNDDW went so far as to create an entire-album visualizer of manipulated psychedelic mirror-screen colorizations peppered throughout with (parts of) philosophical quotes, it seems fair to say that the actual audio of Flux — the debut full-length from the Nijmegen, the Netherlands-based trio — is only part of the point. The three-piece comprised of bassist Huibert der Weduwen (also in Bismut and part of the arts duo PhosPhor, responsible for the aforementioned video and live visuals), guitarist Gerben Elburg (also of Mt. Echo) and drummer Peter Dragt (also in Bismut) present three longform, improvised pieces across the 44 minutes of Flux, recorded at Studio 888 and mastered by the esteemed Pieter Kloos at The Void Studio, it is an immersive and purposeful glimpse at the band’s beginnings.

Which is to say, another part of the point that goes beyond the audio itself when it comes to Flux is that it is formative. Across opener “VII – Part 4” (11:21), centerpiece “VI – Part 1” (22:26) and closer “VII – Part 2” (10:16) — and I’ll just go ahead now and wish you the best of luck keeping those titles straight — DUNDDW take a relatively raw-sounding approach to their style. Not that they don’t trip out, as toward the later reaches of the finale, or offer any semblance of drift, as in the swirling middle build of the leadoff cut, but all of this is offered with a clear mindset intent on remaining as organic as possible. There might be some layered overdubs, but if there are, it isn’t much, and nobody in the band is going back to touch up parts. The idea here is that DUNDDW are chasing an ideal of sonic and creative purity — the inspiration of the moment, at the moment it happens, recorded directly as it happened and offered in the most honest terms possible.

It’s true they’re not the first to do this, but they acquit themselves well across Flux with these extended snippets presumably cut from more extended jams. And that’s a kind of shaping of a release too, right? There’s an editorial decision being made there in carving out ‘part two’ of a thing instead of including the whole thing itself, but listening to the way “VII – Part 4” comes down with its drawling lead guitar over residual swirling effects and are-we-finished inquisitive toms, it legitimately feels like the last piece of whatever jam led them to the bassy start of the beginning of its fourth part. Does that make sense? Probably not.

Think of it this way: Flux is not completely untouched by human hands. You might say human hands made it. It is raw, but it is not just a rehearsal-room-on-iPhone recording, and as much as DUNDDW are setting their course for the heart of the jam, letting each piece find its path in ultra-organic fashion relying on what’s already a marked and palpable chemistry between the three of them — it better be, because they’re pretty light on fancy tricks otherwise at this point — they’re not at all un-mindful about what they’re doing. Even at their farthest-out points, they remain conscious, aware.

Should they continue to pursue such ethereal ends, working to capture the flash of a creative spark, that consciousness will serve them well if ultimately lead to some kind of direction, but part of the appeal of Flux as a debut album is that they aren’t there yet, and part of the reason it works — part of the point, if you want to go back to the start — is that they’re feeling their way through this material as it happens, not unlike the listener taking them on for the first time, someone maybe who has heard Mt. Echo or Bismut or who hasn’t and is just lumping around Bandcamp and stumbles onto them accordingly.

This mirrored exploration, the shared joy of not knowing what’s coming next, is central to the understanding of Flux, and even after one has been through the vastness of “VI – Part 1” multiple times, from its relatively quick emergence with the drums setting the pattern behind guitar effects intro, the bass joining, the guitar coming back around next over the funky progression that, suddenly, is underway, to its more thudding, more low-end pushing second-half roundabouts, resolving in a last stretch of chug before swirl eats it whole, they still surprise. Flux almost dares you to read it closely, to sit with each measure and movement DUNDDW make, to fully engage. Different audiences will, of course, have varied experiences.

Hearing again the sort of moaning soloing that tops “VII – Part 2” in its early going, I can’t help but wonder what role live performance will have for DUNDDW as they move forward; if they’ll be a band who records and releases every show they play à la Øresund Space Collective and others of an improvisational ilk, how they’ll work to bridge their multimedia impulses over time, and so on, but again, this too is part of what makes Flux so enjoyable — wondering, not knowing. For a record that sounds so open, it shows the band’s future to be much the same in that they very purposely set themselves to the task of conveying complete aural freedom.

That is not nearly as easy as it sounds, and DUNDDW do not seem to be thinking of it as a one-and-done kind of project — that is, just going by the sound here, how they progress over time will be part of their appeal in the longer term — but admirably, they do not sound cowed by such considerations, and the most resonant impression that comes out of Flux is the joyfulness behind its making. While not necessarily blinding in its shimmer (or trying to be), Flux is by no means dark or lacking in color even before one takes on its visual incarnation; its deep, earth-toned hues like hippie dyes made from berries found in the woods. A somewhat low-key celebration, maybe, but a celebration just the same, it is Elburg, der Weduwen and Dragt bidding welcome to those willing to take this voyage with them, and only the first chapter hinting toward a much longer tale. Here’s looking forward.

DUNDDW, Flux visual album

DUNDDW, Flux (2022)

DUNDDW on Facebook

DUNDDW on Instagram

DUNDDW on Bandcamp