Stroom HHV Records 33 Items

It's never too late to celebrate love.

"I could climb every mountain. Cross the mighty sea. Refuse water from the fountain. To have you here with me. And I know I'll endure it. I'll be waiting at your gate." A liminal love message between Ad & Frankie from W.A.T.. Both folk country'ish songs made in the mid 80's"

"Pablo’s Eye is the science of studio pressure, when engineer becomes artist. Appropriating left and right as well as front and back, Pablo’s Eye uses the mixing desk to examine and exhaust the possibilities of moments. Pablo’s Eye is a record of that examination and exhaustion, but it is also a record of its own inner space. By means of depth placement, psychoacoustics and spatial fug, Pablo’s Eye is experienced in the deeper reaches of the body, bypassing the conscious part of the mind entirely.
Pablo’s Eye is the turning of recorded music inside out to show its seams. It interrogates a song, stripping down the body of the song to reveal its bones. Pablo’s Eye is in the interstices of music, it plugs the gaps, fills the holes. Pablo’s Eye seeks out the concealed mechanisms, it is a song’s hidden agenda.
For this compilation, it was decided to present the softer air-beatings of Pablo’s Eye. More than anything, Pablo’s Eye is a temporary atmosphere, like a taste or a dream..."

LTD to 400 copies

Sissi Rada's humble manifestations of the miracle of life, the troubles of love, the thoughts that span through a human mind while performing simple tasks, educated by her love and natural inclination to poetry, read like small vignettes, or marginalia notes on a diary that is of constant flux.

Recorded, mixed and produced by Sissi alone, in her Athens’ home, using a spartan but powerful instrumentation of harp, a Prophet synthesizer, and first and foremost her intimate and enchanting voice, ‘ Aporia’ stands out with its simplicity and familiarity, like a page out of a diary, shared with a blush and a witty smile."

Retail version: 100 copies only "The sea as the engine of imagination. Imagination as the engine to overcome the sea." Cees van den Oever" Originally released in 1982 on tape.Paperless heat stamped special edition record kind of thing. *

Dali Muru & the Polyphonic Swarm (formerly known as FITH) sit in a venn diagram of troubadour poetics, cinema soundtrack, and primordial electronics.

"We drew a map of the road trip together. A green line from Bambi across the Danube to the Carpathians. A fairy tale animated in technicolour, unfolding in slow motion. All protagonists hovered slightly off the ground. The soundtrack of Transcarpathia and a whirling unresolved hum. A disembodied camera flies thru a bartak forest; it sinks down on a nest of wild mugwort..."

"Naive overlooked New Beat / New Age project from 1989"

Sometimes in life, a certain incentive is needed to convert talent into productivity. As for the case of MKS, the enigmatic and musical disguise of Nicolas Aubard, it was a merely coincidental encounter at the end of the 80s that set the stone rolling. For Nico, it all began in his hometown of Saint-Quentin in Northern France. At a young age, he got obsessed with Japanese and American cartoon culture. Being a devoted collector of cartoon-related toys and widgets, he spent hours watching anime series on TV and creating scale models of science fiction and horror-related sceneries. Growing up in a musical household, young Nico took on stringent training in classical and jazz piano. But, frustrated with the fact of not being the technical virtuoso he wanted to be, he turned away from his training at the age of 16. “I had no choice, as I felt as if my creativity got limited by my piano. That’s when I got drawn into the world of synthesizers.” Not long after, Nico put together a home studio and started to experiment with ambience and sound-inserts. Despite years of experimentation and music making, all Nico’s productions stayed between the 4 walls of his modest home studio. Something that would change in 1988, when Nico bumped into Emmanuel “Manu” Prevost.

“We met on a night out in Lille”, Nico recalls. “I usually just stood by the dj booth, as I wasn’t a good dancer. So instead of throwing shapes at the dancefloor, I started a conversation with the dj, who happened to be Manu. By the end of the night, I handed him a demo tape of the album I was wanting to do.” Propelled by good fate, a fruitful collab happened between Nico and this dj. For Manu, everything also fell in place: “At the time, I was looking for a composer to work on producing a new beat record. As a dj, I often crossed the Belgian border for gigs and this new style was in full explosion over there. I heard Nico’s songs and naively told him: “Let’s make an album”, without knowing how.” Despite the high hopes for the new alliance, the project turned out to be a shot in the dark. “I assumed Manu already had some experience, as he proposed to do the mastering himself. But funnily he only told me after the release of the record that it was his first time too. But you know, we managed.” Not willing to release under his own name, Nico came up with Musical Keyboard System, abbreviated as MKS. The alias was born and the journey ready to take off.

The album finally released in September 1989. After the release, Nico went on a low-key promo tour together with Manu in Northern France. “We aired a video clip on FR3 for two songs, together with a short interview. In their studio, we created a scrimpy décor with some green plants to resemble the Vietnam jungle (as for the track Nam Revelation) and we shot the clip. Manu even lay down behind a screen operating the fog machine.” As a live act, Mks’ career was rather short-lived, with a first and final gig in the Theatre of Saint-Quentin a few months after the release. “In France, we would remain illustrious strangers. Yet in the meantime, our music got played on new age radios in the USA.” After the end of MKS, Nico moved to Paris and Manu took on his military duty. In the army, Manu met movie animator Jacques Rouxel (the man behind French cult series Les Shadoks) and got him in touch with Nico. The duo collaborated with Rouxel on some compositions, before they went their separate ways at last. Nico went on to pursue his childhood dream, as a pioneer in France for integrating 3D animations into classical cartoons. Manu in turn became a producer for feature films.

Maroma was there long before the Moors. The Moors were there long before man landed on the moon half a century ago. Drum machines meant you didn’t have to take Ginger Baker our for a drink. Life takes on sublime logic. In retrospect, everything takes on a new meaning from a different perspective. The past is the future. From Glasgow to Edinburgh to Andalucia. This music is about a small journey, an aural triptych of sounds

A moving and poetic journey that can sound at once coldly electronic, seemingly abstract, and at once heartwarmingly human. Holsen’s unique gentle melodies emerge to surface and go hand in hand with Cassiers’ fragile bits of songs and words, offering the listener a lead through an etheric dreamworld.

Stroom's 2023 valentine release in good times and in bad. In sickness and in health. These four songs were recorded over the course of a 3 and a half year relationship

Compilation focussing on the late Patrick Stas. The 80's wave / synth legend behind Paul K, Gheneral Thî et les fourmis & Albert et Guido

Stroom pull out two early Belgian Trance burners from '93. Tracks by Furyon & Anymus respectively. This is the the good shit. Mine's a Mitsubsihi. Artwork by Lucien

It was the third summer of love and the radio was streaming a festival down by the sound mirrors. The neo hippies were worshipping the womb and vibrating with the infinite palette of rainbows. Couples were copulating by the concrete, as a hooded man resequenced its DNA, tuning the mirrors to five two eight. It was the love frequency, and they were spreading the love.

Strange lovesongs from the Belgian Dender area in the early 80's

"The other night when I was talking to my friend I said: believe me, I wasn’t far from death when I lived in the hotel the only thing that he could do was take me in his arms and love me and kiss me and show me the difference between friendship and love but there is none"

A label collaboration with Granvat, Merope and Vilnius chamber choir Jauna Muzika created these melodies based on Lithuanian folk songs.

"Goodmorning. I wish you, a merry merry christmas. As you sit by the fire. I see your sadness on your face. You hear the funny bells inside your head. And I do look into your pretty eyes. So gray. The Funny Bells. You are my friend. Today." au

Composed between 2017 - 2020, these songs came to fruition over a period of time coinciding with an awakening spirituality. 'Time Together' is an attempt at describing the beginning of a journey into self knowledge and spiritual awareness through music, creating something soothing and meditative that is also percussive and bass heavy to convey a diversity of spaces, places and emotional states navigated through voice and song

Tucked away in the Dutch underground of the early 80’s a young Hessel Veldman created his own music world in the small industrial sea town of IJmuiden. It was a world recorded on tapes and reels. A world where things happened according to personal logic based on sonic exploration, electronic sounds and improvisation. The approach was intimate, at times light-hearted, but often following deep inner contemplation and total immersion in the creative process. Above all, music was made according to the Do-It-Yourself principle of the home-taping culture.

There is an endless abundance of variations that the clarinet can use in changing the colour of a single note. Ben creates a web of sounds that are hard to pin down but easy to absorb as a whole. A sense and perception of continued growth too illuminated and overwhelming to resist.

2019 Repress - Ambient / synth / wave compilation centering the man who brought us Absent Music / The Misz / June11. Introvert gold!*please note there is NO BOOKLET OR DOWNLOADCODE with this version of the release.

SHAKTI, a three-man formation around “Praga Khan”. With this first mini-lp Praga once more proves his capability to drill into new rhythmic territories. Demonic Forces is a dance record. Western discotheque rhythmics mixed with Eastern influences. A unique creation that certainly can be called astonishing. The use of original Eastern instruments gives the whole an extra mystik dimension. With the help of some friends amongst whom a.o. Naburak Pran, Shakti succeeds in attaining an unparalleled atmosphere without losing sight of the ever so important dance beat. Demonic Forces, a revelation. '

Benjamin Lew was an enlightened amateur, in the noble and almost Renaissance-like sense of the word: he dabbled with equal grace in photography, writing, visual arts ... and worked part-time as a cocktail mixer in a tropical bar which was one of the favourite watering holes of Brussels’ thriving artistic community of the early ‘80s. Tuxedomoon had just moved to Brussels, and Steven Brown was among the many musicians, designers & artists who patronized the bar. Benjamin had a secret passion: he wasn’t a musician, but had acquired a small analog computer, with which he had started creating these strange mysterious little pieces. Benjamin played them to Steven and asked him if he’d agree to record with him. Steven was taken with them and accepted. The Douzième Journée was largely created in the studio by both protagonists, with the help of Gilles Martin and myself, in the spring of ‘82. Listening to his albums (he went on to record four more with Crammed) is like embarking on a dream journey to the Sahara or the Far East. You’d think that some of the pieces feature non-European musicians or samples but: no... this is just Benjamin’s imagination, his synths, and his friends… Marc Hollander, Feb. 2019

Stroom's valentine special for 2019. "Lovely" Electro / Wave from Venice, Italy (1981-1984)

More than anything, Pablo’s Eye is a temporary atmosphere, like a taste or a dream... Last one in the trilogy…

Music For South Belgian Serial Killers

Previously unreleased soundtrack by the guy behind Pas de deux! Inc digital bonustracks + postcard

Temir Alcy (producer Enir Da - Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm and multi-instrumentalist Charles Lmx) is at the junction of spherical textures of acoustic clouds and shapeshifting forms of immersive electronic percussive patterns. By intertwining etherionic atmospheres and organic moods to magnetic and hypnotic rhythms, Temir Alcy explores the mysteries of the future and the unknown through a journey of sensory trance, where whispers and melodies of voices strike a vivid contrast between emotions’ fragility and sound’s solidity enhanced by a downtempo, leftfield and erratic kraut’s feel.

Alex Deforce & Charlotte Jacobs are overtaking emptyness in shades of silence. Language has something to say here. Voices combined in poetic levels of belgitude. Poetry rewriting days and nights.

"Two elevator bangers to get through the gloomy holiday season by Japanese artist, Sonoko, probably made somewhere in the 90's. Merry ye ye"

"An exciting and vulnarable compilation of the world according to W.A.T., a dutch pop / wave band who was active in the early to mid 80's. For fans of Vazz & Ruins."

"Stroom pull out two fathomless Acid Trance burners from '93/'95. Artwork by Lucien"

"Stroom pull out two majestic Techno / Trance burners from '93/'94. Artwork by Lucien"

Sergeant's debut lp is a 9 track trial & error effort. A collection of failed protest songs, dreamy and naive. Playfull & self relativating pop music trying to blow up itself.