(K-RAA-K)³ / Belgium / 2013 / 12"
KRAMP is the solo project of Stijn Wybouw, a young artist involved in many visual and musical projects that often overlap and which share an unflinchingly honest approach as well as penchant for crimson hues. As KRAMP, Wybouw assumes a red-faced identity to unleash raw machinations that take on ceremonial underpinnings through coarse compositions, murky drones, and warped vocalizations, all churned through the marshy fuzz of various tape recorders.
After a slew of self-releases, KRAMP’s first wax outing remains bound to a DIY ethos reminiscent of early 2000s noise and freakfolk undercurrents. On Nervous Rattles, the core is shaped by the original tapes themselves, their materiality evident through the process of flipping, tampering, layering and collaging, resulting in muddled interweaving textures that form a deranged tapestry of a near-ritualistic order. Chanting, breathing, moaning, howling, and other bodily elements enter into a free-form dialogue with an indiscriminate array of instruments to create an open-ended, hypnotically shifting structure. A return to primordial zones, hearkening to the ungraspable eeriness of something both familiar and mystifying.
After a slew of self-releases, KRAMP’s first wax outing remains bound to a DIY ethos reminiscent of early 2000s noise and freakfolk undercurrents. On Nervous Rattles, the core is shaped by the original tapes themselves, their materiality evident through the process of flipping, tampering, layering and collaging, resulting in muddled interweaving textures that form a deranged tapestry of a near-ritualistic order. Chanting, breathing, moaning, howling, and other bodily elements enter into a free-form dialogue with an indiscriminate array of instruments to create an open-ended, hypnotically shifting structure. A return to primordial zones, hearkening to the ungraspable eeriness of something both familiar and mystifying.