"Razen's Postcards From Hereafter was recorded using a 17th century organ tuned at 398 Hz (meantone) in a Belgian cathedral erected in 1305. The ensemble explored, with rich results, the organ's strict and limiting tuning with an arrangement that included hurdy gurdy, recorders, chalumeau, violone and nyckelharpa. The pieces on Postcards From Hereafter explore the crossover between this world and the next with improvised spiritual, religious music. Brussels-based ensemble Razen use the unique timbral and drone characteristics of their chosen string and wind instruments in improvised, instinctive music that mixes pre-industrial, spectral and ethnic dreamtones with trance and medieval mysticism. The group includes Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour as well as Pieter Lenaerts on five-string double bass and sarangi, Paul Garriau on hurdy-gurdy, David Poltrock on Ondes Martenot, Berlinde Deman on serpent, and Jean-Philippe Poncin on chalumeau and bass clarinet. RIYL: Olivier Messiaen, Sun Ra, Popol Vuh.
Over the past twelve years, the Brussels-based ensemble Razen has been forging a singular path that rethinks the idiom of minimalism and pushes it toward a higher plane; tapping the primal root, while pushing toward the future. Founded in 2010 as duo of Brecht Ameel (organ and string instruments) and Kim Delcour (wind instruments), growing and contracting as an ensemble over the years, the band deploys improvisation and the unique timbral and drone characteristics of string and wind instruments to sculpt landscapes of intuitive long tones, combining the trance-inducing roots of music with a progressive vanguardism that seeks the intangible and the unknown. The band's releases are emblematic of the hybrid between psychedelic music, Early Music and contemporary spectral approaches. Razen has performed all over Europe on numerous occasions, on international festivals and well-known venues, from Fylkingen in Stockholm to Berghain in Berlin to the small church of Dranouter (Belgium).
"... an intoxicating sauce of stark and tripped out ritual music... which conspires to keep listeners in a semi-permanent trance state" --Julian Cope (Head Heritage).
"... a heady brew of deep listening music that is almost medieval in mood and wholly reverential in technique" --Edwin Pouncey (Wire Magazine).
"Razen push the drone potential of medieval instruments like hurdy gurdy as well as shawm and recorders... into realms of total sensory overload" --David Keenan (Volcanic Tongue)." - Important.
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
