Huys Opnamen by Venediktos Tempelboom

Venediktos Tempelboom is the alias of Gentenaar Benwa Meneers. Using the 12-string guitar as his main instrument, the self-taught musician takes fingerpicking Americana and Eastern transcendence into the Flanders fields with spiraling compositions that often drip with dark drone melancholia.

'Huys Opnamen' contains a selection of his home recordings from 2019 - 2020. The five pieces are Venediktos Tempelboom at his purest: raw, eerie and at times with a sly sense of humor. Being in his private environment, he is still molding his compositions and you can hear him improvising, searching and experimenting with restraint and release. The music is all the more exciting for it.

‘Huys Opnamen’ also seems to be a study in recording and producing techniques. Recorded all analog, each track is very much its own distinct sound world, some more lo-fi and gritty than others. While this suggests a hastily thrown together collection, the opposite is true. ‘Huys Opnamen’ is a carefully sequenced album, engaging throughout its 39 minutes running time.

On side A ’Old Ladies, Lush Garden’ sounds dry, close mic’d and earthy while ‘The New Home’ and ‘Chikanery’ are reverb heavy and ethereal. Things are slowing down on side B with ’Het Sleet’ and ‘Think I Might Drink’. The atmosphere is desolate and both tracks seem to be recorded on old, worn out tape with the occasional ghost sounds of previous recordings. ‘Think I Might Drink’ concludes with the sound of a lone beating heart slowly fading out. A fitting end to a simultaneously exciting and chilling album.

Operating at the fringes of folk and experimental music