Sometimes you see bands or projects that haven't released anything in ages, and suddenly: they're back. At other times you see labels that haven't released anything in forever, and *whoomp* there it is... again. This time it concerns an artist that releases quite often (Roel Meelkop) and is a welcome name in Vital Weekly, but the label... Turntable Tapes - how META can you get: Vinyl and cassette in a single name - releases something for the first time since 1986. And to make the META concept even stronger, it's a proper CD.
I've written a few times about Roel in the recent Vitals, and each time I am confronted with the silence or, better said, 'the absence of sound' in his compositions. For me, this absence gives a lot of his work a certain fragility because, in this absence, you open yourself up for input or reactions of the listener, especially in live situations that is a difficult thing (coughing, phones, talking audience, you know). But "Rest In Space" is different. This almost 50 minutes doesn't have this silence yet ... The choice of sounds - we know him better than that, should be read as the thoroughly designed sounds - and the purity of the whole composition still creates that fragility differently. The fragility is there, but there is no opening anywhere, so there is no opening to be confronted with the absence of sound.
This absence of silence gives the concept behind this album, as written on the cover - learning to cope with the loss of loved ones - a very remarkable depth. We are all confronted with a loss at times, but we all handle it differently. And sometimes we don't need to talk about it (or give a particular space or opening for it), but we just cope. We lock ourselves away for an hour and don't need to be confronted with silence, but we'll let our thoughts meander and listen to music while we just 'are'. For fans of experimental drones, the first album to be considered for the best of 2023 list.
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