Karel Appel has been played on NTS shows including Kit Records, with Poème Barbare first played on 24 April 2016.

In 1963, long before art brut, free jazz … hell, even before most of the 60s-lineage musical movements we’re still talking about today took form, abstract-expressionist painter karel christiaan appel logged time in the instituut voor sonologie (then recently relocated to the university of utrecht from eindhoven) to compose music for a documentary being made on … himself by cinematographer jan vrijman …

Perhaps in attempts to capture an analog of his roughly-hewn visual style, appel absolutely went to town on the instituut’s … battery of percussion instruments, piano, electric organ, and of course his own shouted proclamations (famously, “i do not paint i hit !!!”) … these were all used as raw material to build three musique concrète pieces, made in collaboration with the insituut’s staff (frits weiland, jaap vink, and will eisma) …

The results run from cecil-taylor-meets-dick-raaijmakers dual-fisted piano klang to inept electric organ fumblings to full-on riots of distorted kettle drum and assorted percussion-room filigree, assembled into an extremely edit-heavy suite (much use of tape-speed manipulation ; many of the timpani hits tuned so low as to only be felt), running at break-neck speed for pretty much the entire duration …