As most of you know, since early 2023 I have been working on Wetlands Worship, an ongoing artistic research that involves travels, music rituals, writings, sculptures and photography.
One main part of the project is the creation of a music record.
Stemming on the live music ritual OAKBaLLZ and EELSkin that took place in Vilnius, and the experiences in Iceland in the summer of 2023, I began plotting tracks and recording first versions of songs in early 2024.
The songs capture strands of the research and feelings such as a wish for submersion, silent ocean floors, death, decay and longing for a relation with the earth that mirrors the sacred again.
Learning to produce a record, developing vocal capacity, hearing the sounds that I wanted to put together in a virtually endless world of sound that is music, has been taking it's time. Time also to process grief, pain, both of times long gone and the more recent times.
I realize that it is more strange in the music scene to reveal unfinished works or album art that it is in the visual artist scene, it matters to me to keep my people updated and to share process. So hereby I share the first mock-up version of the BZZ BZZ album cover (seen above).
BZZ BZZ is the sonic and lyrical result of a personal exploration of murky, angry and transcendental feelings heated and molded together in the crucible of climate decay, rising fascisms, war, personal traumatic catharsis and the lethal death-spasms of Empire.
it is a raw record that takes a listener on a trek around a dark and emotional island with rusty metallic docks and shorelines; an animistic world where murky bogs are sacred and doom is expected and triumphed.
Many of the songs are built from the samples of insects, water, storms, metals and chainsaws, which together with both acoustic and electronic instruments, carry eccentric vocals, deep sonic riffs, melodies, and at times groovy beats.
BZZ BZZ is expected somewhere early spring 2025.
More information and several segments and demos of songs can be found here.
As said, I am composing and producing the record by myself, in addition to doing vocals, lyrics, several instrumentals and the overall concept.
But I am also happy to share that I've been working with supporting instrumentalists Rosa Ronsdorf (synth/keys), Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti (electric guitar), Franky Rosaly (percussion) and Ruben Dahmen (bass clarinet). It's a joyeus community work, to make music, it is something I wish visual arts could also be more at ease with.
The album cover credits: photography by Nina Maria Allmoslechner + Venus Jasper (edit). Hair & Make-up by Liisi Kõuhkna. Costume by Venus Jasper + Peachy Clam. Earrings: Peachy Clam.
I also like to thank the Mondrian Fund, SENA music production fund, AFK Amsterdam and AMARTE fund for supporting this creative process.
More to come!
Thank you
venus