Edgar Wappenhalter - IJsschots Veenlaag Mist

Luster member Steve Marreyt ventures out under his Edgar Wappenhalter for a solo set of open-ended, experimental folk song which displays a heavy penchant for the dreamy and gently psychedelic. Inspired by the writings of Dutch poet Sonja Prins, and featuring a contribution from long-time collaborator Annelies Monsere, Ijschots veenlaag mist proves a striking exercise in liminal songcraft, the near vaporous shimmer of guitar, submerged drum machines and ethereal fourth world electronics lingering like mist in the cityscape dawn, almost too ephemeral to take hold of but certainly enough to breath in. Since Marreyt's been involved with Morc in one way or another for decades it feels almost churlish to make the comparison, but you'd not have been surprised had this turned up on Stroom instead, so evocative is it of that same haunted-dream-memory aesthetic we associate with the label. It's no bad thing, and Morc itself is much esteemed in its own way, but really the credit should lie with Marret himself for creating that stretches our understanding of him as an artist and his music out into mysterious new lands.