A selection of some of the albums released by Ellende.
For this release Ellende was a core of three original members plus a guest musician. The album was recorded between May to August 2020. Due to Covid the tracks of Unintentional Consequences were recorded individually by each member in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tokyo, and London.
The release contains a twelve page booklet with artwork by Richard Hart. The autobiographical text in English and Afrikaans is of a trip taken to Cape Town in the mid 1970’s where two teenage cousins are confronted with the consequences of their shared family history. Richard’s artwork plays with the hidden consequences of the family history and the coldness of the human heart using stones and masks as the leitmotiv in the design of the booklet.
The music can be described as ambient; the sounds are multilayered, often a bit dusty and slow moving. Most of the tracks have have been recorded on tape giving the whole album a nostalgic, warmish atmosphere. Often a few tones of piano or flute form a melody, but are often drowned in drones, echoes and other left-over sounds. Throughout the tracks bits of texts from French movies from the 1970’s float in and out. The reason for the usage of the French text is explained in the booklet. Most of the music is made with vintage analogue synthesisers such as the Arp Solina, Prophet 5, ARP Solus, Juno 6. Most of the piano’s, Rhodes I and II and a Wurlizter are from the late 70’s as well. Mastering again was done by Rafael Irissari, whose own ambient work we greatly admire.
Unintentional Consequences is the second part of a trilogy of which Ellende’s previous release the double 10” album Odyssey, A Sentimental Journey from 2019 was part one.
Available here
Track titles:
Side A: Long Forgotten Pleasures, Sublime Tribulations, Alain Delon,
Side B: The Splinter in my Soul, TE480, Unintentional Consequences.
Ellende was:
Martinus Antonius: ARP Solus, Casio VL-Tone, Eurorack, Recording, Looping, Processing, Mix - Tokyo;
Carina Bruwer: Flute - Johannesburg;
Richard Hart: Art Direction and Graphic Design - New York;
Rafael Irisarri: Mastering, Black Knoll Studio, New York.
John John: Wurlitzer, guitar, Juno 6, Tape, Processing - London;
Lodewikus Pretorius: Piano, Rhodes MKI en MKII, Prophet 5, ARP Solina, Mellotron, Mix - Cape Town.
Hand-numbered edition of 300 copies edition set with double 10” vinyl records. A booklet in a oversized poster dust-cover. Artwork by Richard Hart.
Odyssey, a sentimental journey:
Ellende’s latest release sees the band bringing together an album based on a trip Wim took to Japan to visit his cousin in the early 1990’s. Most of the music in the records was recorded live at The Plantation in 2018, with a few minor overdubs added at various locations (Tokyo and London).
The music might sound a bit nostalgic, the ambience of warm February nights in Cape Town while the sounds of old French movies seep through a badly tuned piano. Sometimes the doors are shut and large metal sheets are heard processed through guitar pedals. A modular synthesiser, analogue synths (Roland SH-101, Juno 6, ARP Solus, Solina) and guitar have been used as well throughout the album.
This is the first album of a trilogy, Unintentional Consequences is the second album.
Ellende was:
Dave “Slave” Mbambi: Guitar, Drones, Synths
Lodewikus Pretorius: Piano, Modular, String Synths
John John: Synths, Bows, Percussion,
Martinus Antonius: Recording, Mix, Tapes, Phasers
Rafael Anton Irisarri: Mastering
Richard Hart: Design and Art Direction
Vital Weekly 1206 Frans de Waard
For quite a few reasons this release is a big surprise. First of all, I had not heard of Ellende in many years. The last time was back in Vital Weekly 772 when I reviewed a live cassette from the group. That was after some hiatus, but between Vital Weekly 346 and 444, there were no less than ten different releases reviewed in these pages (I even wrote “by now Ellende seems to appear in every new Vital Weekly”) including the all-revealing 'Kut Met Peren' 3"CDR. So that is Dutch and so is the word Ellende, which stands for 'misery'. That is one surprise. The next one is that this release doesn't fit the previous somewhat lo-fi aesthetic of the old work, but this a lovely, beautiful release. The records are packed inside the front cover of a hardcover book (actually an oversized dust-cover, and some thirty-six pages of text and images, all in beautiful black and white. The third surprise is that Ellende is still around and still very little is known about them. Wim Bontjes and his cousin Martinus Antonius start it out with tape experiments. Bontjes committed suicide in 1995 and the group continued with his "conceptual ideas", even when these ideas remain unnamed. Over the years many people have been a member, all in steady flux. This new record was recorded in South Africa, as, mystery solved, they are from there and not The Netherlands, with Dave "Slave" Mbambi on guitars, drones and synth, Lodewikus Pretorius on piano, modular, string synths and John John on synths, bows, percussion while Antonius is responsible for recording, mix, tapes and phasers. Bandcamp is a bit more specific: "Sometimes the doors are shut and large metal sheets are heard processed through guitar pedals. A modular synthesiser, analogue synths (Roland SH-101, Juno 6, ARP Solus, Solina) and guitar have been used as well throughout the album."The release is about a trip Wim made to Japan to visit his cousin (I assume Antonius) and the stories are about a "pitiful chase of sex', portrayed by "women's death-masks-like faces", as such by Richard Hart in the book. I mist admit that I re-read some of the old reviews to remind myself what Ellende was all about; I forgot after all those/despite all those releases. I must say I very much enjoyed this new release. There is an excellent dark mood depicted here, fitting the likewise dark images of the book and the tales of sordid sex. An endless stream of synthesizers mingles very pleasantly with sustaining guitar sounds and sound effects used to place accents in strategic places. Sometimes the guitar is strummed in a more traditional way, such as in 'Girlfriend Experience' but against a doomy backdrop of much reverb. Throughout this album carries on the torch of Ellende's previous work with fuzzy and busy drones, beautifully colliding. This is one damn fine release; one that is just perfect, both in music and packaging. It is almost like a pre-programmed collector's item. I am very curious if Ellende will slip back into another period of hibernation. I hope that is not the case (FdW)
Hand-numbered edition of 300 copies edition set that features a clear 10” a CD and an accompanying art book/manifesto
“Surreal, multilayered droning hypnotic and tense. Keep listening, over and over again, every time you keep hearing new stuff.”
Dronedronedrone
Online release for Fukk GOd Let’s create
Recorded at various location, assembled at the Plantation 2003. Mini_madness was insprired by Wim Bontjes’s “Book of swearing”
Mini CDr
The Locus of Assemblage - mass09
UK 2004
1. Summer Child
2. Natto
Recorded at various locations, assembled at the Plantation, 2003. Limited to 200 numbered copies
“A nice addition to this mysterious Dutch/Japanese project's extended discography, "Heroin" is a 20-minute piece as grim as the title and the graphics suggest - the concept obviously being taking one's life via drug overdose.
Ghost voices crawl in and out of the sullen drones, and Ellende surely know(s) how to mix all the different sounds in a cohesive composition.
Even the final litany, apparently filtered through a vocoder, sounds credible and effective. Limited to a mere 50 copies, so hurry while you can, as it's very good.”
Eugenio Maggi
Mini CDr, Afe Records, Italy, afe50012
Heroin 20:26
Serving as a soundtrack to Wim Bontjes' (deceased co-founder of the Ellendegroup) "Book of Illusion", Ellende's release on Entity is - much like their other netreleases (Ti Con Zero (No Type), Mini Madness (Fukkgod) and The Delegation From Nowhere (Tinnitus)) - a very thoughtful and conceptual piece of work which came to us in handmade mini-cdr packaging.
Both "Ten Years a Second" and "Sleepsoup" urge you their creeping catatonia, leaving your thoughts in between illusion and reality. Infinite drones come haunt you from all sides like a nightmare, bringing with them nearly uncontrastable layers of muffled recordings, detuned instruments and echoes from forgotten memories. Assembled at the Plantation (2003).
“I have reviewed Ellende (Dutch for misery) before. The title is also Dutch and not easy to translate, so I skip that. I believe the guy behind Ellende is Dutch, but not living in The Netherlands. Somehow with such a bandname and title, I expected some noise trip along the lines of the infamous Odal (if that's a reference to anyone - if not, don't worry), but actually it turned out to be a very nice work of drones and processed field recordings, obviously on the darker side of matters, but certainly not noisy. I detected some heavily processed instruments also on board on this. The one piece is built with quite some tension building up. A fine work indeed.”
Frans de Waard
Mini CDr, Verato Project Germany 2003, verazität 016
Recorded at various locations, assembled at The Plantation in 2002. Cdr in DVD case, Limited to 75 first 35 with a slideshow Cdr.
“Ellende’s musical adaptation of Italo Calvino’s novel about Qwfwq and Pricilla’s love beyond time and space is a rewarding earful of bended tones, high-pitched processing and twisted soundwaves.”
Online release for Sine Fiction Vol. X, October 2003
Ellende give us a tone pulse and wave, adding layers and some notes, a scrape and guitar. Then they play with the varispeed, slowing and speeding it up, synths notes in there. A high shimmering swarm, a musical twanging, lies over the varying base, a whistly shimmer that sounds like a bowed saw. There is an eerie mood. A change to rumbling roll with long low tones and bloops, voicelike noodles building. A bussing that has speech rhythms with a dark rumble under bleak and troubled, wavering being used again. A slow ambient drone takes the foreground while a distant chatter drops, becoming more equal, then easing. A bubbling synth and tingles takes over, some warbled tones, a drifting melodic, mysterious long metal and voice tones, dronal to fade. Intense short works that flow like thaw fed rivers.
- Ampersand Etc.
Mini CDr, Zeromoon, USA, zero012
Online release for Tinnitus, Belgium TSN003
