Roel Meelkop – Grey Mass / Grey Matter

Roel Meelkop

CDR 3″ – 1000füssler
A Dual 3″ CD-R, enclosed within beautiful A5 dark cardboard packaging has been released by the experimental German label 1000füssler. This is a production by Roel Meelkop, a visual artist with a strong interest in music, who is somewhat attracted to decidedly minimalist, skinny and abstract codes. We say “somewhat” because the actual source of the sounds in these aleatory sequences is openly dubious: to the ear they may seem synthesized sounds due to the extreme rarefaction of the melody, but the author assures us in the presentation of the project, that “no electronic sound was added” – all the collected material is created from recordings. Here is an expedient that is really minimal, because in music everything is always in relation to human intelligence and the compositional techniques associated with a particular and specific approach. Implicitly affirmed here is the concept that perception is imperfect when it comes to assessing complex aesthetic phenomena: “how to compose and why” depends on a clear set of choices and the work of Roel Meelkop testifies to this, in a cryptic but unexceptionable way.