ANKERSMIT, THOMAS - Homage To Dick Raaijmakers

"Thomas Ankersmit's new album for Shelter Press Homage To Dick Raaijmakers is an all-analog electronic music composition inspired by legendary Dutch composer/electronic and tape music pioneer and multimedia artist, Dick Raaijmakers (1930-2013). The work takes inspiration from Raaijmakers's music from the 1960s, his texts on sound composition like "Cahier M", and notes on his own music. On this recording, Ankersmit plays Serge Modular feedback and sine/pulse/random generators, contact mic, and tape speed variation; mirroring some of Raaijmakers's work, Ankersmit plays his Serge synthesizer as a kind of weather system. He references storms, thunder, crashing and falling objects, and distant radio transmissions in his electronic sounds, as well as dragging a contact mic across his equipment. Despite the abstract nature of the material, a sense of loss or mourning sometimes emerges from the music. With his homage Ankersmit re-contextualizes Raaijmakers's ideas about electric sound, composi