Samuel van Dijk is an electronic music producer, sound designer and media artist from the Netherlands. With his current project Multicast Dynamics he creates ever-evolving sound textures culminating in intriguing soundscapes while preserving a tranquil cinematic atmosphere. Drawing inspiration from nature, technology, film and fiction, his music productions, live sets and audiovisual work presents a carefully arranged, recorded and processed body of work, using a vast amount of layered sound textures, field recordings and live improvisation. In May 2015, Denovali Records released the first two albums of a four part series by Multicast Dynamics, conceptually linked by our undeniable connection with nature and its wide range of landscapes, colors and movement. Now the third album called SCANDINAVIA follows in October 2015.
Assembled during the coldest season, SCANDINAVIA is an album full of contemplative electronic recordings, created by the use of granular synthesis, obscure delay units and rudimentary looping techniques on magnetic tape. Recorded with a longsighted outlook, it features washes of subdued tones and textures as well as melancholic and warm sounding pulses of noise - all characterized by distinctive aquatic features. Steadily flowing, but slowly awakening the album draws frozen remote landscapes ranging from dark, cold and desolated to melting, warm and hope.
Based in Californian Humboldt County, Brian Pyle wanders the world on his countless travels. Much like a Lynchian version of Hemingway, he has an eye for the thin layer between restlessness and relaxation, gloom and serenity. Wherever he goes, he ardently absorbes these nuances, rarefies them and moulds them into a seamless array of glimmering styles, from drone and ambient to shoegaze and post-wave, giving birth to yet another creation of his prolific Ensemble Economique project.
On his by now eleventh album and fourth Denovali release "Blossoms In Red", Pyle combines and perfects elements of his previous output into a cohesive narrative.
The opener "From The Train Window, Red Flowers On The Mountain" is a surprisingly scarce ambient piece, which feels like an almost infinitely stretched precious moment of time. Having barely escaped its seductively infinite loop, one encounters the title track "Blossoms In Red" featuring Portland electronic duo Soft Metals. Starting off with a characteristic sluggish programmed beat, one is immediately overpowered by the onset of the towering combination of a warm bassline and a shimmering synth ambience. "On The Sand", featuring jack-of-all-trades Peter Broderick, is essentially just reduced analogue drums, electric guitar, a simple vibrating bassline and hoarse almost spoken vocals. As proven on numerous occasions, Pyle can easily lead all his trumps in the presence of female lead vocals. Indeed, "You, By Candlelight" is easily the best Ensemble Economique track with female vox to date. The fifth and closing track "Nothing Is Perfect" is a classically tinged piano piece.
Thus "Blossoms In Red" is probably Ensemble Economique's most minimalistic album, but at the same time - or maybe just for this reason - his most skilled work.
The 15th World Soundtrack Awards is the closing event of Film Fest Gent on 24 October 2015. The WSAwards aims at supporting film music, sound design, composers and their worldwide promotion. In fifteen years time, the WSAcademy has grown into a group of 370 international professionals nominating through several rounds of voting.
Artistic Director Patrick Duynslaegher: "If you are looking for the next generation of great composers, you just have to look at the World Soundtrack Discovery Awards, where composers as Michael Giacchino, Gustavo Santaolalla, Craig Armstrong and Abel Korzeniowski were acknowledged early on in their career by the WSAwards Advisory Board."
NOMINATIONS DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR
The Discovery of the Year Award is aimed at encouraging emerging talent, who have scored not more than six feature films with theatrical releases in total. Besides receiving the award, the winner will perform at the 16th WSAwards in 2016. The nominees for Discovery of 2015 are:
- Alex Ebert for ‘A Most Violent Year’
- Dominic Lewis for ‘Spooks: The Greater Good’
- Antonio Sanchez for ‘Birdman’
- Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow for ‘Ex Machina’
- Zhiyi Wang for ‘But Always’ & ‘Highway of Love’
SABAM AWARD FOR BEST YOUNG COMPOSER
Each year young film music talent is given the chance to receive the SABAM Award For Best Young Composer. The candidates were instructed to compose music for a scene of ‘The Third Man’ (1949) by Carol Reed, in the context of FFGent’s British focus this year. The winner receives the SABAM Award (with a value of €2.500) and follows in the footsteps of composer Cyril Molesti, winner of 2014. The professional jury consists of Patrick Duynslaegher (Artistic Director FFGent), Dirk Brossé (composer, conductor and Music Director FFGent), composer Michel Herr, Stefan Rycken (manager ACE Image Factory), Hans Helewaut (Managing director SABAM) and director Adil El Arbi. They chose 3 finalists:
- Maxime Hervé (Canada)
- Peer Kleinschmidt (Germany)
- Roman Falkenstein (Latvia)
PUBLIC CHOICE AWARD
At the 15th edition of the World Soundtrack Awards, the winner of the Public Choice Award for the Best Score will be announced. These are the 5 scores of the past year that were most voted for by the public.
- ‘A Little Chaos’ by Peter Gregson
- ‘Ex Machina’ by Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow
- ‘Far From Men’ by Warren Ellis & Nick Cave
- ‘The Maze Runner’ by John Paesano
- ‘Timbuktu’ by Amine Bouhafa
15TH WORLD SOUNDTRACK AWARDS
The World Soundtrack Awards will celebrate its 15th anniversary with Alan Silvestri (‘Back to the Future’, ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ and ‘Forrest Gump’), Lifetime Achievement Award Winner Patrick Doyle and Discovery 2014 Daniel Pemberton. Film Fest Gent will also release an album with the best scores of Silvestri, recorded at Flagey Studios in Brussels by Galaxy Studios. Conducted by Dirk Brossé and performed by Brussels Philharmonic & Flemish Radio Choir. The record will be released by Silva Screen Record Limited.
The 15th World Soundtrack Awards & Concert will take place on 24 October 2015 at Kuipke in Ghent. Watch the teaser HERE. All info & tickets can be found on worldsoundtrackawards.com. Listen to the WSAwards playlist and much more on the Spotify account of Film Fest Gent. #ffgent #WSAwards
BodyBeats Productions & Dark Balloon present:
Simi Nah - Be My Guest V2.0
Absolute Body Control + Ex Rz
DJ BORG vs Skullscraper
After the succesful and SOLD-OUT first edition of Simi Nah's Be My Guest concept concert earlier this year at De Casino (St-Niklaas, B) our friends and collegues of Dark Balloon decided to have a second edition. This time Simi Nah and her guests will be perfoming at GC Den Dries (Retie, B). Invited this atime are Luc Van Acker (Revolting Cocks/ Arbeid Adelt!), Nikkie Van Lierop (Jade 4U, 101, Lords Of Acid), Dirk Ivens (Absolute Body Control/Dive/The Klinik/Sonar), KGB, Sayfie, Gert Van Geel (The Arch). Blasting after party beats & noizes will be spun by DJ BORG vs Dirk Ivens!
The Underground Youth, who have just released their new LP, Haunted, on the 4th of September, are embarking on a 39 dates UK and EU tour. The tour will start on the 25th of October with a set at the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia.
