JOZEF VAN WISSEM

FOR BOOKINGS CONTACT : [email protected] player Jozef Van Wissem is renowned for his unusual approach of the Renaissance and Baroque lute. He cuts and pastes classical pieces, reverses melodies, adds electronics and processed field recordings The unusual wedlock of composition and improvisation creates an unheard amalgam of contemporary folk and late Renaissance music. He has accomplished the strange feat of bridging the idiom of seventeenth century lute literature and twenty-first century composition. Although Van Wissem uses subtle electronic sound manipulation, he has largely stayed faithful to the particular timbre, resonance and playing technique of the lute. Van Wissem first came to be noticed a few years ago because of his radical conceptual approach to Renaissance lute music: he deconstructed existing compositions, for instance by playing them backwards. He also composes his own pieces for lute, using palindromes and mirrored structures. His music therefore does not have a traditional linear progression, nor leads to a climax, it rather stays on the same level of intensity. His music is quiet and not so much demands concentrated listening, as it will bring the listener in a state of concentrated listening. Van Wissem runs the Incunabulum record label, and performs extensively around the world. He has worked with Tetuzi Akiyama, Maurizio Bianchi, James Blackshaw, Gary Lucas and Elliot Sharp. With Blackshaw he has formed Brethren of the Free Spirit ( Important Records) He also lectures on idiomatic lute composition and improvisation and writes music for film and documentaries.Some press clippings:ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE: "TENDER MINIMALIST PICKING AND GOLD SPRAY OVERDUBS" PITCHFORK MEDIA: " HYPNOTIC MINIMALIST FIGURES SEEM TO BREEZE ACROSS MUSICAL BOUNDARIES WITH EFFORTLESS FLUENCY'Stations of the Cross"Jozef van Wissem has been slowly reinventing the lute for the last three decades. Among the slew of fast-picking, fancy-fretting guitar players so prevalent today, his lute’s voice is a quiet oasis, and Stations of the Cross a small masterpiece. The 14 compositions here follow the 14 stations of the cross, a ritual of observance built from the final moments in Christ’s life before he was crucified. Certain tropes appear throughout. Slow mournful arpeggios are returned to again and again. When played on the slack stringed lute, notes are left hanging solitarily and isolated in their own lacunas only to be left in greater silence by the pauses van Wissem leaves between each arpeggio on tracks like “ Dew Drops fall like Tears at Eventide” You Can’t go Home Again” and “ The Great Wheel”. Occasionally higher register harmonies or fanned chords add color, but the musical sense is one of a doleful and somber procession. Four tracks contain field recordings drawn from waiting rooms and station platforms. When voices can be picked out, they ask for directions or appear to be wandering lost in the impersonal purgatory of the nonplaces of modern life. These mark poignant moments of Christ’s journey- his first fall( “Low Mass”) and his death on the cross(“Pilgrim Talk”). They also create the most spiritual effect by enveloping events in a lost, transitory soundscape and counterpointing the human and the divine, the sacred and the profane". Nick Southgate The WireDISCOGRAPHY:2000 - Retrograde, A Classical Deconstruction (Persephone 002) 2001 - Narcissus Drowning (Persephone 003) 2003 - Simulacrum (BVHaast 0104) 2005 - Objects in Mirror are closer than they appear (BVHaast 0905) 2006 - A Rose By Any Other Name - Anonymous Lute Solos of the Golden Age (BVHaast 0606 / Incunabulum 001)2007 - Stations Of The Cross ( Incunabulum 004)2008 - A Priori ( Incunabulum 009 CD/ AUDIOMER LP) 2008 - The Garden of Forking Paths ( IMPORTANT Records)Collaborations:2002 with Gary Lucas - Diplopia (BVHaast 0103) 2003 with Tetuzi Akiyama - Proletarian Drift (BVHaast 0404) 2004 with Gary Lucas - The Universe of Absence (BVHaast 0105) 2007 with Maurizio Bianchi/ M.B. - Das Platinzeitalter (Incunabulum 002) with Tetuzi Akiyama- Hymn for A Fallen Angel (Incunabulum 003) 2008 Brethren of the Free Spirit ( With James Blackshaw) - All things are from Him, through Him and in Him (Audiomer CD/LP)