Vidna Obmana
Literally, vidnaObmana means 'optical illusion'. For more than twenty-four years, this metaphor would prove the suitable moniker for a project which has allowed Dirk Serries the ultimate freedom of placing his music before his personality. A self-taught electronic musician, Serries initially explored different musical formats bordering noise and dark sound collages in the early 80s before discovering canon-like looping techniques and subtle methods of shaping harmonies by merging different layers of no more than a few notes.
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Literally, vidnaObmana means 'optical illusion'. For more than twenty-four years, this metaphor would prove the suitable moniker for a project which has allowed Dirk Serries the ultimate freedom of placing his music before his personality. A self-taught electronic musician, Serries initially explored different musical formats bordering noise and dark sound collages in the early 80s before discovering canon-like looping techniques and subtle methods of shaping harmonies by merging different layers of no more than a few notes.
website
Aliases: Fear Falls Burning, Dirk Serries
Intermediate Obscurities III (Live At Spontaneous Music Festival October 5th 2019)
**200 copies limited edition** Live recording from Dirk Serries’ Tonus project, which explores long-form, minimal, graphic score pieces.
The River Of Appearance
** 2021 stock ** This Vidna Obmana work is a surprising return to textural composition, particularly since intervening collaborations with Djen Ajakan Shean and Steve Roach have revealed the more restless side of Dirk Serries compositional persona. Still, an overarching focus on melody and dynamics distinguishes Appearance from earlier program works such as the Trilogy, combining mood with movement in far more obviously "musical" ways. Slow strings and piano, and gentle and sparse repeating line…
Revealed By Composed Nature
Tip! ** 2021 stock ** Vidna Obmana (née Dirk Serries) recorded Revealed By Composed Nature in 1989 and 1990. It was his first vinyl album, intended as a sequel to his cassette releases. However, the pressing was of such poor quality that much of the emotional intent was lost. Serries digitally remastered the album and presents it here on CD. He also restored the original depth of emotions. Through a unique process, Serries creates synchronized loops through the internal sequences of the instrume…
The Shape Of Solitude
** 2021 stock ** "A collaboration with yet another guitarist, The Shape of Solitude takes Vidna Obmana's music nearer the realm of the Avant-Garde. This collaboration with guitarist Serge Devadder demonstrates Vidna Obmana's willingness to lead the audience, not persue them; fans of his gentle soundscapes or tribal grooves will find themselves challenged by this CD. The source for all the pieces was the guitar. Devadder's already contorted riffs were bent even further by Vidna Obmana's studio wi…
Tracers
** 2021 stock ** In the early years of 21st century, vidnaObmana teamed up with US experimentalist David Lee Myers, of Arcane Device fame, for a collaborative album that showcases their shared fascination for processing and recycling sound. “Tracers” is the audio evidence of this meeting. A few years later this material was mastered by Dirk Serries and got the new design based on Martina Verhoeven’s artwork.
Soundtrack For The Aquarium
Tip! ** 2021 stock ** Vidna Obmana (whose real name is Dirk Serries) evokes the sunless wet gloom of his native Belgium in this CD which, as its name says, is music composed by Obmana as background sound for an aquarium installation. It has seven sections of his atmospheric (or rather, aquatic) ambience, dating from '92 and '93. Obmana stays with his familiar repertoire of long, floating electronic drone tones over percussion and sound effects. When he uses tonality, he favors somber open eleven…
The Trilogy
** 2021 stock ** A rare treat much-anticipated by out-of-the-loop Obmana fans, The Trilogy collects a trio of full-length recordings self-released by Vidna's Dirk Serries, featuring hands down the composer's finest, most accomplished textural works to date. While three discs might seem excessive for a compositional style relying heavily on looping and repetition, the pieces never seem indulgent or overlong (indeed, they occasionally seem almost too short), with each disc sketching out an emotion…
Melancholia
“‘Melancholia’ is, perhaps, a somewhat misleading title for the duet of John Edward (double bass) and label boss Dirk Serries (acoustic guitar). One might expect some sad music, a soft thud on the bass, a few strums on the acoustic guitar, but it is clear that these men deal with a different kind of melancholia right from the start. In the two pieces (forty-four minutes), I think there is a mutual agreement between the two to work along dynamic lines. They cut out the middle ground, it seems. Th…
One In The Eye
“From May this year, One In The Eye is a double CD bringing together Alan Wilkinson and Dirk Serries for selection jagged, moody, to-playful improv. The set features one disc taking in eight tracks, and a second disc features two longer work-out.
The first disc opens with the nearing six minutes of “Upshot”- here we find Serries jagging ‘n’ jerking strums weaved with Wilkinson energetic and at points quite seared sax work- this works as a nicely urgent and shifting opener for the release, throwi…
Solo Acoustic Guitar Improvisations I
**Limited edition of 100 copies** “Following some forty CD releases on his imprint New Wave Of Jazz, Dirk Serries thinks the time is right to expand to the world of vinyl. Here he plays a 1957 Hoffner archtop guitar, and recorded with a single microphone, some 50 centimetres from the guitar and there has been no other audio processing. The liner notes, as always by Guy Peters, are on the front cover, and he uses the extra space the format allows him, to talk some more on the history of free jazz…
Imaginary Junction
Performed by Cath Roberts (bariton saxophone and objects), Dirk Serries (acoustic guitar), Martina Verhoeven (piano), Tom Ward (flute, clarinet and bass clarinet) on July 18th 2020. This music was recorded simultaneously in two locations - Brockley and Sint-Lenaarts - using the JackTrip software to transmit/receive the live sound via the internet. The musicians could hear each other at studio quality in near-realtime, despite the physical distance separating them.
Jazzblazzt
Rodrigo Amado was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1964 and took up the saxophone at the age of 17 while convalescing from an accident. Later he studied at the Hot Club Music School and was soon playing with numerous rock, pop and experimental projects. At the shifting boundary between free jazz and improvised music, Amado's position is clear: he plays jazz. He is so clearly a jazz musician that he doesn't require any pre-determined elements of rhythm, harmony, chorus lengths or melody to play jazz.…
Light Industry
**300 copies** "Colin Webster and Dirk Serries are skilled improvisers you can’t pin down on a single outlet. They remain restless seekers, never content with merely repeating themselves, not even within the same project. Compare Gargoyles to Light Industry. They are totally different." - Guy Peters"Serries and Webster meet again at their favorite studio, Sunny Side in Anderlecht, Belgium, in September 2019 for an intimate duo where Serries plays only acoustic guitars. They already recorded a du…
Praxis
**300 copies** "It’s the classic 'the journey, not the destination' attitude. Dealing with the moment. Dirk Serries, Martina Verhoeven and Colin Webster have a refreshing take on that. They use instruments, but it feels as if they are playing with wood and metal. With breath and touch. They caress, pluck, sigh, thump, blow, push, creak, sputter. There is no obvious order to what they are doing, yet you are aware of a certain concord, an understanding below the surface of what’s there. The openne…
An Evening at Jazzblazzt
**300 copies** "Another special such place, situated in Holland, but only a few hundred meters from the Belgian border, is JazzBlazzt. It is as homely as can get - basically a garage turned into a small concert venue - but at the same time a miraculous place, where many artists that have appeared on this label have performed." - Guy Peters"Dirk Serries, still on acoustic guitar, meets again violist Benedict Taylor, and pianist Martina Verhoeven (she plays only on the second set) in a live perfor…
Vanguard
**300 copies** "As Derek Bailey once argued, the term ‘improvisation’ is loaded with such widespread connotations (the music is unprepared, flippant, without depth) that you’d almost hesitate to use it. However, no better alternative has become available and moreover: one close listen to Vanguard lets you know that you are dealing with skilled and inspired improvisers adding a worthwhile chapter to a 50-plus years legacy." - Guy PetersPerformed, recorded, mixed and mastered at the Sunny Side Inc…
Air
**300 copies**In just a couple years Dirk Serries' A New Wave Of Jazz imprint has amassed quite a collection of diverse works that may impart some new variant of jazz and electronic music. Here alongside the venerable experimental electronic composer Asmus Tietchens, who Serries has collaborated with before (under the Vidna Obmana moniker) they are fit, dynamic, and deliver something quite different from anything they’ve released prior. Over six tracks that run about forty-seven minutes the two …
Impetus
**300 copies** "Dirk Serries (acoustic guitars), Kris Vanderstraeten (percussion) and Martina Verhoeven (piano) – these are three featured figures of international avant-garde jazz scene. Musicians are playing and collaborating with dozens of other famous jazz masters. Their music is played with expression, drive, creativity and energy. All three musicians have their own style of improvising, sparkling virtuosity and the will to create new, exciting and modern sound. All their music is usually b…
Puncture Cycle
**300 copies** "Spreading their intuitive playing over nine, randomly sequenced improvisation titled with numbers, Benedict Taylor and Dirk Serries many variations on fiddle string twists and slurred guitar fingering produce tunes that are manually constructed, deconstructed and put back together again. Tracks often posit and resolve singular experiments. For instance, the hard dry swagger of IV opens up into a tremolo and spiccato bowed narrative. Swift, repetative slithers from Taylor enliven …
Innocent as Virgin Wood
**300 copies, 2019 stock** "In its essence, free improvisation is a leap into the unknown. A question mark. And while it is possible to reproduce previously used ideas, in its purest sense it takes balls to accept its challenges, for the simple fact that the performer is out there alone, even when playing with others. Free Improvisation is being naked on a stage. The unavailability of form and reassurance about what is happening next cannot be underestimated. In improvised music, the musician is…