The Dutch Earational festival (out of ‘s-Hertogenbosch as the city is called in every atlas and not Den Bosch as it says on the cover, just in case you may wonder where to find it) is an annual electronic music festival, but it varies in size. Sometimes four days, in 2003 it lasted ten or so days, but probably in 2002 it had it smallest size, when the festival lasted one day. In the evening there was a concert by Main, and a performance with music of Roland Kayn, in the afternoon Pimmon, Heimir Björgúlfsson and Helgi Thorsson each played a solo concert. All three, aswell as Robert Hampson (Main man), arrived a day and there were some rehearsals for a collaborative improvisation between the three afternoon guests. Everything was recorded, rehearsals and concert, and Hampson has edited this release out of it. I just happen to know that the recordings were all two track and not multi-track, so Hampson did have a difficult task editing this out of it. It’s not difficult to guess what to expect: crackling electronics, occassionally rhythmical loops, noisy bits thrown in and some plunderphonica. Some of the pieces (which of course have no title) are quite exciting, like the opening piece, but occassionally it leaps into straight boredom, when the improvisations drag on and go nowhere. (…) Robert Hampson did a nice job glueing the whole thing together – and that seems to me no easy task.
FdW