Ellende Odyssey, A Sentimental Journey

Ellende means misery in Afrikaans (and Dutch) and has in some form or another been making music since 1976. Cousins Wim B. and Martinus A. experimented with a double tape deck by recording, and adding through overdubs, dozens of records mostly Dutch, Afrikaans popular (smartlappen) music song onto a single 30 minute tape, with unremarkable results. In 1990 the name Ellende was used and as a “band” the duo, now a five member formation, turned an old pool house into a studio: The Plantation. The result of these night-long sessions was usually a psychedelic cosmic ambient soup in which the early influence of tape overdubs could still be heard below the numerous layers of drones. Wim committed suicide in 1995, but his influence through his conceptual ideas and his fragmented writings continues to provide a strong direction for the remaining band members. During the early 2000’s a lot of the work came through various anonymous collaborators which resulted in a series of releases on labels such as Fukk God Let’s create, Zeromoon, Taalem, Afe Records and Mystery Sea. The side effect of this type of collaboration was that one of these contributors started a rather successful metal-carnival version of Ellende in Austria.