Dirk and Dirk-For the Soul; LaoBan Records, 2025

 

It is safe to assume that, for many drummers, playing with non diatonic pitch systems of thought can come as some kind of a relief. This may explain the appeal for forms such as Black Metal or Free Improvisation, in that said forms subsume the melodic (at least in European Classical terms) to the rhythmic. This substitution allows drummers to "go off of script" in some sense, or as is the case of Black Metal especially, to command the helms of a group and lead its actions. Within the free improvisational form, a drummer can experience even higher amounts of liberty within their role within an ensemble; the amount of drummers that have begun to avail themselves of this type of liberty has increased seemingly exponentially over the past six decades and Disaster Amnesiac suspects that they've been utilizing it since earlier than that. Put simply: it's fun to play that way. Dirk Wachtelaer certainly sounds as if he's enjoying himself as his striking implements hit drums and resonant metals on For the Soul, his duo recording with Dirk Stromberg. Dirk S. plays the Fryprone, "a hybrid machine of sensors and accelerometers". Together, Dirk and Dirk produce sound occurrences that are characterized improvised moves, moves which often evince each player's capacity to listen and respond within the musically performed matrices. It sounds as if the Fryprone is by its very nature an abstraction machine. The instrument is one that gives out squeaks and clatters and blurbs and plorps and explosive what the fuck-ery, along with the occasional melodic fragment. Stromberg plays the thing with genuine adeptness. Dude knows his axe and he's showing it. Not far behind is Wachtelaer. Disaster Amnesiac has already stated how much of a blast he's heard to be having on For the Soul, and will add that his percussive cajoling pulls many and varied extendo-sounds from what it seems to me to be a relatively small set up. When he goes full bore and whirls away and around his drums, it's a true delight. His tom tom expressions on Embers in the Static is top flight! I mean yeah, let's REALLY give the drummer some! Heard together, the album's pieces, pushed by the aplomb of their two players, roll by in ways that sound very satisfying and intellectually inspiring. The listener will note the skill of thing's engineering too: clear audio capture and sound separation allow the layers of timbral density to emerge. From the gentlest of touches on a tom tom to a full on blasting duration, one can hear it all should one choose to really pay attention. Dirk and Dirk brought their A-games to these two days' recording sessions. Can you the listener bring your most attentive ears? Do so and you'll feel the soul too.