05/07/2022
A big 'thank you' to 'Can't Stop The Bleeding' radio show for spinning a Builenradar tune this week + here's a pretty nice review of the album on Vital Weekly:
BUILENRADAR - THERE IS NO SHAME IN HUNGER (cassette by Sota Jazz)
Let's not even try to explain what Builenradar means. You will 'get' if you speak Dutch. Behind this hilarious name, we find Wouter Vanhealemeesch, who is "a curator and promoter and was the co-founder of the audioMER label". Although his name sounded familiar, I don't think I had heard his music before. Vanhealemeesch plays a resonator guitar which he puts on his lap and sometimes grunts along. His style is unique, I think, strumming and fingerpicking. Builenradar likes to keep it minimal, repeating over and over the same strumming and picking. It has this drunkness quality, which I mean kindly. Somebody is drunk and picks up a guitar and starts to play it. You know the musician isn't drunk, as his repetitions are full on the same throughout a song. In his amplification, there is something rotten. Again, I mean this nicely. It reminded me of Konono No.1, whose amplified motor parts sounded like amplified kalimba's. Primarily this happens in the title track. This amplification adds to the brutality and rawness of the music. Rawness and brutality, but not in a noisy way. Plain distortion is something you don't find on this release. His grunting is low in the 'mix', which I thought worked very well. One could also think it is some drunken rant, and perhaps it is in these cases? I don't know, but somehow I don't think so. There are six pieces in thirty-one minutes, and each one is great. A straightforward and personal release and recorded in such a way that it is almost like the man is present in your room to perform it solely for you, with all the intensity he has to offer. (FdW)
Get is here: https://builenradar.bandcamp.com/releases
