LP + Booklet
Beautifully idiosyncratic third album from Het Generiek boss Bert Scholten that once again sees him return to his interest in the Dutch tradition of speculaas woodcut and the various social practices and gestures built into their use. The woodcut are small carvings of animals or humans that are utilised as moulds for baking biscuits, the gifting of which is historically connected to various mores and rituals - e.g. shapes of men represent public proposals, animals by contrast represent some hidden moral code. Such arcane knowledge is well suited to a record of off-kilter electronic experimentation, various synths and samples falling in and out of sync as Scholten sings of unknown things ovet the top (if you can speak Dutch, perhaps the experience is less alien, though I somehow doubt it). The woodcut tradition isn't the only one being explored here, as Hond Geworden also plugs into a wider Dutch/European historical culture of eccentric DIY electronics, something that you can extend all the way back from Top Tape, Exart and EE Tapes, through Knekelhuis' Kale Plankieren compilation, to more contemporary acts like Goldblum, Lyckle de Jong or Roger 3000. Wonky as you like, but strangely moving too that someone should feel so connected to such a seemingly incidental cultural practice they would make not one but two albums about the subject. We should be grateful for such esotertica.
FFO: Goldblum, Roger 3000, Jean-Marie Mercimek, Lyckle de Jong, TRii
