Forty Five Minutes Of Rheinzand

In the five years they've been releasing music Rheinzand have racked up an impressive back catalogue- two albums, a bunch of singles and a slew of remixes (the remix package of tracks from their debut album ran to twenty three- there's that number again- different remixes by twenty two other artists and one by themselves). Straight outta Ghent, Belgium, the three piece group consist of singer Charlotte Caluwaerts, multi- instrumentalist and producer Reinhard Vanbergen and DJ/ producer Mo Disko. The slick, sleek and irresistible sound they make pulls from house, disco, Balearica, soul, funk and pop, building on dance music's history while aiming for the future. I love them- you should too. This mix tries to not just feature four- four dancefloor bangers but offer a slightly blurrier, out of focus selection of Rheinzand songs, a little off kilter but with hooks and beats aplenty. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Rheinzand

• We'll Be Alright (Single Edit)
• Break of Dawn
• Obey (Hardway Bros Live At The SSL Dub)
• Kills And Kisses (Skylab Remix)
• Electrify Me
• Slippery People
• Porque

We'll Be Alright was a single released in October 2021, a song written as the world emerged from lockdown and released as a point of optimism, a message that things might just be ok. It flutters and dances about, minor piano chords and a rising bassline pushing forwards. Charlotte's vocal soothes and soars, 'high tide, low tide, we'll be alright'. Synths and a sitar float around. We'll Be Alright is a gently psychedelic pop song- heady stuff at the time and since. 

Break of Dawn was the opening song on their self titled debut, released in March 2020 just as the world began to shut down due to Covid and a record that is among the best of that strange year's albums. It fades in in a blur of sound and bass, sounding not a million miles from an early 80s Talking Heads offcut, before some slide guitar appears. 

Obey was a 2019 single, remixed by a trio of excellent people- Scorpio Twins, SIRS and Hardway Bros. The Hardway Bros Live At The SSL Dub is a dubby take, the burbling synths and a two note guitar line riding on top of a growing groove, the sinuous bassline always at the centre of things. Sean Johnston is in no rush, as ever, and stretches things out for over eight minutes.

Kills And Kisses was a 2019 single, also like Obey on the debut album. Skylab's remix was on the mammoth remix package from 2021 along with remixes by the best names in the business- loops, chopped up vocals, thumping rhythms, stop- start sections, head spinning dynamics. 

Electrify Me is a nine minute epic from Rheinzand's second album, 2022's  Atlantis Atlantis, a song that sounds like an explosion at a disco factory with Barry White narrating while the tempo speeds up and slows down like the drum machine's got a mind of its own. 

Slippery People is a cover of the 1984 Talking Heads song, from the 2020 debut album- as good a cover of Talking Heads as any I've heard with a distorted buzzing bassline, disco strings and chanted playground vocals. Porque is from that album as well, a gorgeous dance - pop song, Charlotte's singing of the word 'porque' worth the price of the record alone. Porque is Spanish for because, which is as good an explanation of what Rheinzand do as anything else. 

Monday's Long Song

The Tour de France rode out on Friday, kicking off the 2022 edition in Copenhagen (the furthest north le Tour has ever been). It started with a time trial and the Bahrain Victorious team being raided by the police. Today is a day off for the riders as the teams transfer from Denmark to France for the racing to pick up again tomorrow as they head towards the Alps. To celebrate the Tour coming to Denmark, Copenhagen label Music For Dreams released a four track EP of covers by their artists of some of Kraftwerk's Tour de France songs. Charlotte and Reinhard, both of Rheinzand, covered the eight minute long Vitamin in a pleasingly non- Kraftwerk style, Reinhard's violin taking the place of the keyboard melodies. 

The EP also has covers of the title track by Danish duo Subneisa (where Kraftwerk's synth melody is replaced, brilliantly, by a trumpet)- not a long song but it will brighten up your Monday. You can buy the EP here. 

Back in 2003 Kraftwerk updated their 1983 single and expanded it out into a full album, timed to come out on the hundredth anniversary of the first Tour de France. Fittingly, for a bunch of perfectionists, the album didn't appear until August so missed the race itself. It was their first album since Electric Cafe seventeen years earlier and while it's a very good album, it also shows just how Kraftwerk have been treading water and repeating themselves since the mid- 80s. But then, if you've already invented electronic pop (and had a big hand in the foundation of hip hop and techno too) it's fair enough really. 

Vitamin

Dreams

A grief update if you'll bear with me. Things don't get any easier but they do change- people talk about stages of grief/ bereavement and that seems to be very much the case. Last week we saw a lot of people, friends and family, some of whom we haven't seen since Isaac's funeral just before Christmas. With some of them it was the main thing we talked about, with others it was in and out of conversation and with others it was there, hanging around in the air between us. All of this is fine, sometimes you want to talk about it and other people want to or are comfortable taking about it, and other times you want to talk about other things. It never goes away- and it never will- but you do seem to start to reach a point where it veers between being still crushing, physically painful and unbelievably raw and then times when it can be something else.

We've both had face- to- face appointments with a counsellor this week with the promise of counselling, eight sessions, one a week over eight weeks, starting soon. This seems to be the right time, an opportunity to unload some of this on someone neutral and trained and maybe try to unpick some parts of it and to go through things again. My physical symptoms are still present- tinnitus, jaw clenching and teeth grinding, some unpleasant flashbacks occasionally- but do seem to have lessened slightly. 

We've both dreamt about Isaac recently, the first time either of us has since he died (or at least the first time we're aware that we've dreamt about him). It's very unsettling. I woke up suddenly in the early hours, hyper aware that I'd been talking to him in my dream (he was at college in the dream and I was with him there for a reason I can't remember) and I was very disturbed by it, lying awake with the dawning realisation it hadn't happened. In my dream, briefly, he was still alive. Lou dreamt about him a few nights later. In her dream he was crossing the road outside our house in the rain, wearing his green hooded coat, carrying a cream cheese sandwich wrapped in tin foil which he dropped. He was walking with purpose, like he was going to meet somebody. She was then in the car, going to pick him up but he wasn't there, which when she told me made me cry. 

At the session on Tuesday with the counsellor we briefly talked about other people and their reactions. If occasionally other people don't always get it right or want to avoid us, it's to be expected. They don't know what to say or don't want to upset you. It's frightening for people too. 'You are living through their worst nightmare' she said. 

This song came out recently from the Belgian duo Reinhard Vanbergen and Charlotte Caluwaerts, a single ahead of an album in June. It has a very dreamlike quality- soft, wobbling synth sounds and bird chatter, ringing sounds and drones fading in and out and then slowly Reinhard's violin appears. Waves of ahhhs as backing vocals and that pulsing synth. It finishes with discord and shrieks from the violin feeding back. Lovely stuff but a bit unsettling too. And please do not for a moment read anything into the title of the song and the subject of this post, they are not connected.

Amber Amplifier

Something odd from Belgium for Tuesday, a modular soundscape from two Reinhards,Vanbergen and Roelands. Vanbergen has been here before on his own and as the multi- instrumentalist in Rheinzand. Roelandt hasn't. Amber Amplifier is just under three minutes, a drifting lilting piece of music with synths, ukulele and pedal steel guitar all playing off with and against each other, sounding like the soundtrack to some late night TV weirdness or the otherworldly music playing in a bar you stopped in once and could never find again. Buy it here. I hope there's an album to follow.

Cosmic Silence

This is yesterday's long song, delayed to Tuesday by my daughter's birthday. Reinhard Vanbergen has become my go to Belgian musician over the last year with 2020's bumpity- bumpity Balearic/ house/ disco Rheinzand album, this year's album celebrating a restaurant in Ghent with Charlotte Caluwaerts and now this eleven minute instrumental.

Cosmic Silence is out on Kenneth Bager's Music For Dreams label, a digital compilation called Copenhagen 21. Starting out slow and ambient and bringing a gently rippling synth sound in before a violin drifts in, long keening sweeps of the bow against the strings- I have to be say that the violin is not my favourite instrument usually but here it is very special indeed, all the pieces in place building gradually and filling the room. Quite the trip. 

Copenhagen 21 is at Bandcamp and Cosmic Silence, one of nineteen tracks on the album, is here. In 2019 Rheinzand remixed fellow Belgian Mugwump's No Trepidation, a very swish piece of electronic music with a couple of unexpected turns. 

No Trepidation (Rheinzand Remix)

When All This Is Over

A new Bagging Area mix for Sunday, an optimistic sounding one now that the days are getting longer and the summer seems to be just round the corner. A lot of these songs have been posted here recently individually but they sounded good together. I'm not sure there's a huge amount of cause for optimism with the continuing, ceaseless flow of bad news, bad government and virus rates increasing but maybe it's best to turn the news channel off for a while and unplug. It's at Mixcloud, it won't embed but you can find it here. 

As the voice says in the opening Coyote song, 'when all this is over.... I plan to go north...' 

• Coyote: Café Con Leche
• Private Agenda: Malanai Ascending (Seahawks Remix)
• Chris Coco: Rainy Season
• Reinhard Vanbergen and Charlotte Carulaerts: Julien
• Primal Scream: Inner Flight
• Justin Deighton and Leo Zero: I Feel Edit
• Cantoma: The Mountain (Lexx Remix)
• HiFi Sean Ft. Yoko Ono: In Love With Life
• A Certain Ratio: Berlin (album version)
• Coyote: Feedback Valley
• Future Beat Alliance: Birth (Claude Young Remix)

Julien

Yesterday's post must have appeased the weather gods- I post some Tropicalia and out comes the sun. More new music for your delectation today, from Belgium this time, courtesy of multi- instrumentalist Reinhard Vanbergen and vocalist Charlotte C. Reinhard and Charlotte are also two thirds of Ghent's Balearic dance act Rheinzand. This album- Souvenir Des Bon Gouts- is a less dancefloor oriented, more chilled out affair, inspired by a restaurant in Ghent called Chambre Séparée and the chef/ owner Kobe Desramaults. If I'm ever in Ghent, I'll check it out and report back. This song, Julien, opens the album and is a very pleasant way to spend five and a half minutes- soft drums, some violin and atmospherics, a spacious feeling and Charlotte's voice.