HELLVETTE - Muziek Voor Harmonium

"In his essay The Meaning of My Avant-Garde Hillbilly and Blues Music, Henry Flynt talks about how his music should be analyzed as an intellectual tribute to the music of the autochtone, setting aside plain folk references, but adopting academic insights to mold the music one makes as a folk creature. Much of Flynt's discourse applies to the music of Glen Steenkiste's Hellvete. Over the past twenty years he has been thoroughly investigating both the ethnic musical language of various regions as well as the contemporary pioneers that preceded him as a drone musician, internalizing concepts such as deep listening or just intonation. Casting off any redundant ideas or sounds, and stripping down the focus to develop singular concepts, his working method led to pieces such as "Droomharmonium", in which he shapes the endless variations on a theme, emphasizing detail and nuance rather than multitude. The Indian harmonium here serves as the main device to worship ancient ghosts and masters, an