Hailing from the Netherlands, Roel Meelkop is a prolific sound artist, whose musical venture began in the 80s with THU20, a project in the realms of electronic/experimental music. Moreover, he has worked with artists like Kapotte Muziek, Frans de Waard, Howard Stelzer, Detlev Hjuler & Andrea Göthling (Kommissar Hjuler Und Frau), Wieman and Pierdrie among others.
He has a larger discography, and Viva In Pace is his thirty-second full-length album. Conceptually it is based on the work and themes of the American abstract painter Ad Rheinhardt (1913-1967), and in particular “No War” which was his protest against the Vietnam War- Rheinhardt had sent a postcard to the War Chief of the United States in 1967, filled a list of negative orders, some specific to Vietnam war (“no napalm,” “no credibility gap”), others applying to any armed conflict (“no bombing,” no draft,” “no escalation”) and furthermore, commands of a general ethical or moral sort (“no poverty,” “no injustice,” “no evil”).
Viva In Pace is about the question of the inevitability of things, the probable futility of activist (and not only) art or what could happen when one has reached a fundamental life goal. Philosophically the album wonders about that pivotal existential question we all face at some time in our lives; the possible vainness in what we do and what will be done once that vainness is observed.
The album is largely synth-based, more or less minimal music, embracing the likes of Charlemagne Palestine (Negative Sound Study) or Jean-Jacques Perrey (Prélude Au Sommeil). Though there are chunks of kraut rock, as well as vintage and contemporary electronics- either going, back to the roots or a kick to the future electronic music, monolithic but complicated in its form, haunting and somewhat uplifting, stepping elegantly in a classic aural terra. “Viva In Pace” is floating between structural composition and abstract sound art. Slow-paced, simplistic yet narrative, soft but with quite a few harsh outbursts, sophisticated atmosphere and at times it is easily transcending into low profile ambient. Some cinematic amendments are evident and present and this synth experiment is circulating its beauty all over.
This is an ode to synth craftsmanship (Meelkop is heavily experimenting with modular synths) and it is also an album that seems sonically polarized, as the questions inflicting upon it!. Karl Grümpe
via Musique Machine