Ignatz
I Live In A Utopia
This sprawling collection by Belgian loner blues savant Bram Devens aka Ignatz encapsulates the mystery, murk, and melancholy of his uncanny craft at its most windswept and wayward. Originally issued via Goaty Tapes in September of 2015, this long-anticipated vinyl edition expands the saga with an additional 17 minutes of archival material. Deven’s palette remains constant throughout: feathery fingerpicking, modal loops, and intuitive six-string navigations interspersed with candlelit passages o…
Saturday's Den (LP)
** Limited edition of 800 copies. Comes with an insert and a download code. **On their third LP for Ultra Eczema, psychedelic blues gloomers Ignatz & De Stervende Honden have driven off the bendy sideroads and onto a straight, if not exactly narrow, path. And there’s new sounds coming out of the stereo: The Les Rallisez Dénudés-type guitar fuzz of previous journeys has been phased out in favour of softer, repetitive VU stumbling and even some Fleetwood Mac-esque romance. But it remains an unmis…
You Can't See Me
A shining talisman sent by the trusty lo-fi gods to beam a path out of darkness - good ole Ignatz does it again. By now he’s gone beyond the moniker to represent a near-disembodied entity, a humble personnage dwelling in spectral zones where ghost birds float attuned to the primal resonance of loner blues. You Can’t See Me, Ignatz’s latest outing on KRAAK, fully lays bare the vulnerability that has been an illuminated thread in his music, cultivating the kind of sparsity which hints towards ine…
Deadbeat Freedom
**600 copies** Belgium's psychedelic blues folk master Ignatz returns with his band for a second album on Ultra Eczema. These are songs to get lost in and confused by. Tripped-out blues folk that sounds like Les Rallizes Dénudés feedback in 100% Egyptian cotton. Ignatz is the alter ego of Bram Devens. He has been releasing albums since 2005 on Kraak, Feeding Tube and Fonal Records. Previously only playing solo, now he plays and records with De Stervende Honden, which includes Erik Heestermans on…
The Drain
For the last decade, Belgian guitarist Bram Devens has been releasing solo recordings under the name Ignatz. A couple of cassettes have come out in the States, but most of his releases have been elusive imports. Thus, we have taken it upon ourselves to do a public service and release a domestic version of an LP that will appear on the (K-RAAK-K) label in Belgium. This must be something like the sixth or seventh studio album Ignatz has cut, and it's a remarkably solid slab of mysto-folk/blues inv…
Teenage boys
In the past 10 or so years Ignatz has explored all visible cracks and overlapping layers between (or underneath) folk music, blues, singersongwriter and psychedelia. It is a pleasure to see him take this beauty to yet another level by unleashing 2 dying dogs to join him as a backing band, pushing his tunes into directions Les Rallizes Dénudés took a left and forgot their mountain of distortion, to end up in a dessert where Teenage Boys dance their first slow. De Stervende Honden know their place…
Mort aux vaches
New Ignatz cd out now on Staalplaat ´Mort Aux Vaches´ series. Live session at Berry Kamer´s Dwars program at VPRO. KRAAK is working on a new Ignatz lp as well, compiling the best tracks of his cassette releases. Will be released after summer...On Friday Ignatz plays at the Kinky Star in Ghent. On May 22nd his new band Beautiful Band plays at the RTT in Brussels with The Psychic Paramount and Das Os. ´Beautiful Band [Laurent of Rot (guitars), Bram Devens of Ignatz (vocals & guitars), Paul Labrequ…
III
LP version. III projects the atmosphere of Jack London and The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog onto a modern world ruled by technology. Devens brings us the most genuine melancholy contemporary pop music has seen since quite some time. This album leaves the underground scenery that is troubled by trends so often far behind and just shows us the pure essence of what Music has to be: raw emotions put to sound. With his third full album Bram Devens has once again amazed us with a masterpiece. In his usual …
I Will Soothe My Eye To Feast It With A Sight Of Beauty
After releases on Kraak and Imvated (or Bread and Animals, Dutch Beer, Cauliflower Dreams or whatever Lieven decides to call it) Ignatz put out this rand new release on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon. Dense clouds of chirping crickets and tangled birdsong are woven into thick sonic brambles, a swirling confusional knot of sound, a bit like Sunroof! occurring in nature, while underneath a strange melodic tapping drifts and a moaned vocal floats ominously. Pulsing bagpipe like guitars intertwine with ha…
II
The debut of ignatz is still fresh in your memory, and he's already there with the follow up. On ignatz II, he continues his road through the Appalachians in the year 2050. Stunning rootsfolk, but played by a lost and unworldly creature. 'II' still has that familiar ignatz sound we love so much, with the difference that on one of the six tracks he doesn't use any effects. He even mumbles more clearly and explores his own musical world more thoroughly. If Lou Reed would have fertilized Cthulhu in…
Untitled
'Growing up on a diet of '90s lo-fi, old blues and the Smithsonian Antology Of Folk Devens calls himself a lo-fi fascist. When he was just 15 years old he used to unroll old cassettes, rumple the tape and roll it back on. While recording he kicked his four-track to experiment with the wow-and-flutter effect or he just layed down his tapes in the pouring rain.And like a mouse always finds the way to the cheese, Ignatz stayed true to his roots. He wraps up his folkish guitar music in a cloud of ef…