Review

"Lucht van een andere planetet" is the debut album by the Belgian guitar duo De Vlaamse Primitieven. The duo's name borrows from historical references. Artists of so-called Old Netherlandish painting have been grouped under this term since the 19th century. "Primitieven" also alludes to the musical tradition of American Primitive. So, it's a double-encoded approach, to say the least. The music De Vlaamse Primitieven play is, if one wants to do justice to its wealth of relationships, quite complex. I can't vouch for the compositional intricacies here. I don't play an instrument and I can't read music, but Jan Boudart and Freek Vreys, the two musicians, studied their instruments at the conservatory, are familiar with historical traditions and the stylistic history of various plucked instruments, and are accordingly masters of their craft. They know exactly what they want and implement it skilfully and without clichés. So much for the old European frame of reference, if you will—although, it should be noted, the duo doesn't play "old music" in the classical sense. The reference to American Primitive, in turn, suggests a pop-culturally informed, postmodern reading and orientation of De Vlaamse Primitives. John Fahey, father of the genre, mixed up all sorts of influences (not just musical ones), used them with great freedom as a trained philosopher and religious scholar here and there, and presented his audience with the odd pseudo-authentic joke. I'll just say "Blind Joe Death," and Freek Vreys and Jan Boudart are equally adept when it comes to their playful (equal parts reflective and humorous) handling of musical identities and traditions, and the associated notions of authenticity. Yes, all of this has to be stated or put forward, because otherwise the premature impression arises: "Well, my goodness, it's just two guys playing guitar and other acoustic instruments." While this may be true on the surface, it does – as is the case with pop culture as an art form – the music and its presentation require interpretation, classification, and serious engagement. And we have to make the effort to identify influences and trace references in order to properly appreciate the musical performance presented here.

The album's title comes from a line by Stefan George in his 1907 poem "Entrückung" (Rapture); symbolist poetry that can be casually described as psychedelic, and this fits the music in its escapist qualities and its striving for other states of consciousness. The carefully composed, meandering, and repetitive compositions can have a lulling or hallucinogenic effect, or alternatively, on the sleep center or the third eye, until I'm "swimming in a sea of ​​crystalline brilliance" (also Stefan George). Speaking of psychedelic: A clear reference point for De Vlaamse Primitieven's music can be found in psychedelic folk of the last 50 years, roughly speaking: from The Incredible String Band and Pentangle (John Renbourn, Bert Jansch) to the Third Ear Band and Current 93, to more recent projects and bands like Six Organs of Admittance, Brethren of the Free Spirit, and representatives of the Belgian scene like Silvester Anfang, Hellvete, and Ignatz, to whom De Vlaamse Primitieven have erected a small monument with the last track of their album, because Jan Boudart and Freek Vreys are "Kinderen Van Dronevolk" (Children of the Drone People). With an eye on the American Primitive tradition, it should also be noted that the American guitarist and brother in spirit, Liam Grant, wrote the album's extensive liner notes, and in this, he's every bit as imaginative as Fahey. (A joint European tour by Liam Grant and De Vlaamse Primitieven is planned for spring and summer of this year.) To open another can of worms (and then immediately close it again): The duo's sound also reveals elements of the ECM catalog and musicians like John Abercombie and Ralph Towner, but to avoid confusion, we won't pursue this path any further here. What remains? In the richness of relationships suggested here, »Lucht van een andere planetet« by De Vlaamse Primitieven embodies strong evidence for the thesis that the cultivation and updating of musical outsider traditions, which, from the perspective of mainstream pop discourse, are often dismissed as antiquated, but are anything but dead, is far from over: The underground is alive and kickin’!