Towards the new Suntapes album TRAVEL MOTION , many singles are being released. These tracks immerse listeners in a cinematic vibe and travel motion. Each track is crafted with gentle melodies on warm acoustic instruments accompanied by atmospheric soundscapes and melodramatic arrangements. Perfect for relaxation and introspection. Plaza, Motion and Fathom combine minimalistic piano with Mellotron Flute and analogue synthesizers melodies.
EXTRiCATE is a reply to a world in overdrive, bringing “an ode to the greatness of the small and unnoticed.” In this intimate, circular, wordless performance, Bert & Tomas craft a world of handstands, live composition, dance, and sound effects. Their journey explores the hidden universes within what we often overlook. EXTRiCATE is a duet of a hand balancing dance performance and a live music & foley performance that offers the audience a soothing universe.
Artistic disciplines: Hand balancing dance, live composition, foley & details
Duration: 50 min
Audience: Age: 10 - 100 , Max. 100 people
Location: Tent, Theatre & Black box
Shows
15 Dec 2024. - Premiere CIRKLABO-festival Leuven, BE
25 Jan 2025. - GC Pianofariek Sint-Gillis, BE
14 - 18 Mei 2025 - Extricate Trapezi Festival Reus, ES
Contact & booking
Bert Vanden Berghe – info@bertberg.com – +32 478 577 866 – www.bertberg.com
Dramaturgy: Margot Jansens
Choreography: Roseta Plasencia
Light design: Casper Van Overschee
Production: Lien Vanbossele
Exterior ear: Aifoon vzw
Coproduction: PERPLX, Circuswerkplaats Dommelhof & CIRKLABO
with financial support: Flemish government, Miramiro & Blinkout
More context
Hand balancing artist Bert Berg explores the boundaries of handstand based on intrinsically driven movements. Composer Suntapes is extrapolating the minimalistic approach in his live compositions. The interaction between both worlds is the base of the new performance “Extricate”.
Make it dark so we can see the smallest light roar across the sky!
While the audience starts focusing on details, an unravelling participative performance unfolds itself. The piece leans on the artistic harmony between a language created out of a new approach to hand-balancing and minimal musical compositions that invites active listening.
The project rebels in all ‘gentle calmness’ against a society that many perceive as too intense, over-consuming and over-saturated with choices. The harmonious analog universe that this performance creates is our answer to this.
Previous try-outs:
8 Nov 2024 - Toonmoment Extricate MiraMiro - De Expeditie Gent, BE
27 Nov 2024. - Toonmoment Extricate GC De Linde - Haren Brussel, BE
12 Dec 2024. - Try-out Extricate GC De Kroon Sint-Agatha-Berchem, BE
Album "Phantom" by Tomas Johan Kristian is out on September 27th. Wavering between melodramatic subtle beauty and energetic minimalism, the solo piano pieces of Tomas Johan Kristian have a soothing feel and warm sound. His quirky approach to classical compositions sprung from his character to avoid the expected and to submerge in his own organic connection with repetitiveness.
Diverse atmospheric musical reflections of wild country side. The pictures I once took early in the morning in the east of Taiwan keep bringing me back. Wild Country, that’s where I want to be. Enjoy the diverse atmospheric sound, disappear from the hectic life and stay in Wild Country for 17 minutes.
New full album Laguna is out on all streaming platforms! Tranquil psychedelic music with an experimental touch focusing on repetitiveness of warm analogue and acoustic sounds. Feel the soothing ritualist vibe.
An immersive audiovisual performance that drags an audience to the details of this unique evolving landscape as full frame realistic visual journey with a live soundscape music performance using analogue synths, warm acoustic instruments Chinese Ruan, Thumb piano, Thai pin and also a bass guitar and experimental sound effects.
Looking for an audiovisual performance to slow down an audience? Get in touch!
Duration: 50 minutes
Artistic elements
Live looping soundscape music by Suntapes
Projection of the 6K video created by Glenn Verdickt
Audience
Sitting down audience capacity: 50-250
Age: 10+
Location
Theatre, Cinema, Black box, …
Last show
17 january 2025: Kapow Ghent BE
Contact & booking
Mail: suntapesmusic@gmail.com
+32 479635589
Z33: Healing Water exposition 2023
Artwork “Regenerative Flows” : Sep Verboom
Videographer: Glenn Verdickt
Composition & Live music: Suntapes
Financial support: Flemish government
This performance is based on the 2023 artwork Installation by Sep Verboom (designer of the year 2020). More info:
Artwork Installation by Sep Verboom
In 2023 we started our exploration resulting in an live installation for the Z33 exposition Healing Water.
Inspired by the process of limestone deposition we created a six month hydrochemical simulation where slaked lime (Ca(OH)₂) and atmospheric carbons (CO₂) precipitate into a solid carbon locking landscape of limestone.
This living landscape that grew and evolved in time was a place where silence reigned and time seemed to slow down. As the elements in the limestone exhale, CO2 reacts with slaked lime, gradually forming a solid carbonaceous landscape. Regenerative Flows invites us to slow down, to reflect on the world around us. It is a reminder that beauty and complexity can come from the simplest materials and the most basic processes.
During these months we investigated how it is possible to translate this natural process into a multi layered landscape, to which various designers and artists can then respond, creating a symbolic landscape in addition to a physical one.
The installation was a starting point for different artistic perspectives to inspire and co-create, adding new poetic layers to the installation. The ultra high resolution video images of the limestone artwork are abstract varying landscapes views that slowly evolve and pull an audience in a unique and unknown universe. Suntapes added a soothing live music performance to these immersive video .
The auditive universe contains the sounds of the artwork and a relaxing & evolving composition with acoustic instruments, analogue synths and effects.
Diverse atmospheric musical reflections of wild country side. The pictures I once took early in the morning in the east of Taiwan keep bringing me back. Wild Country, that’s where I want to be. Enjoy the diverse atmospheric sound, disappear from the hectic life and stay in Wild Country for 17 minutes.
𝗚𝗼𝗗𝗼𝗴𝗪𝗮𝗶𝘁 - dance with a wink to Beckett. The first lockdown 2020. ARC - dance company, saw a parallel between the story of Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' and the world we found ourselves in at the time: waiting an absurdly long time before we were allowed to do what we love again. Coupled with a sometimes absurd series of measures, which created a sense of living in a surrealistic twilight zone.
And the inspiration followed. ARC wanted to translate Beckett's surrealistic play into dance. But how do you portray mental confusion? The dance company started looking, and came up with the combination 'punk rock meets ballet'. Under the title GoDogWait, a nod to Beckett's piece.
In GoDogWait, classical dance and punk rock go hand in hand. Music and dance meet on the border of the experimental and create a story that captures the essence of Beckett's play. GoDogWait is a collaboration between different disciplines.
As musicians we were inspired by the story. Dancers are guided by the music. Live, that gives intensity, sparks, and waiting while something does happen. We called this genre of music: DANCE PUNK. Combining electronic dance music with synthesizers, with a punk tempo on drums and distorted bass guitar sound:
☆Dancers: Aki Nishio, Agnieszka Agi Romek, Jean-Louis Decock, Maciej Piotr Beczek.
☆Live Music: Tomas VANDERPLAETSE & Sven De POTTER, Jente NEELS & Michiel VanDeWinkel
Première: 29.10.2022
The new Suntapes single Forgotten Field is out! An organically evolving ambient story with a dreamy and hypnotic vibe.
Take a morning walk alongside the river in a quiet Japanese town, absorbing the early sunlight coming through the trees on the riverside.
Inspired by the Indian Summer Soul in the amazing image of Photographer Sofie Vosk, Suntapes recorded a gloomy soundtrack for the imaginary story behind it. The album catches summertime melancholy in 8 neoclassical piano pieces with gloomy arrangements. All tracks are recorded on a 1881 Bechstein Grand piano with close miking techniques, including it’s wooden creaking sounds and felt sounds.
Four tranquil compositional ambient pieces created around inspirational field recordings and the warm sound and lush resonance of the Bechstein grand piano.
Sonic Landscapes are dark and slow evolving ambient drone tracks. All of the compositions are recorded in one take with several analogue synthesizers and piano manipulation. The album has a psychedelic, meditative, minimal and filmic feel to it.
This audiovisual art installation is the first in a series of installations built around detuned and degraded piano’s. Although this piano is not playable in a traditional way, it still has an amazing sonic character that is reinforced by artificial interventions. The piano is prepared to produce sustained tones and rhythmic convolutions by itself and when touching the piano. The soundscape that emerges from the piano represents a state of suspended animation. What will happen to this piano? Will it be refurbished? Will it be destroyed? Or will it be ignored forever?
CREDITS
Concept, piano preparation, sound, image & installation: Suntapes
Year: 2021
Video shot at exposition “Buiten spoor” in Chinastraat Gent.
9 compositional ambient tracks: meditative melodies, stunning resonances, filmic harmonies & sound effects.
After many months of no shows, it was a real pleasure to play an acoustic set with a lot of unreleased Suntapes piano compositions. These new neo-classical piano tracks will be released somewhere in 2022, after I released all the ambient electronic and piano music I recorded the last year.
The set list also included my favorite neo-classical piano pieces by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Philip Glass, Yann Tiersen and Jóhann Jóhannsson.
The 2 sessions took place in the stunning atelier of photographer Jules August.
Check out the Spotify playlist Latenight Piano that starts of with the setlist of the show (my unreleased work will be added later)
This immersive experience is an audiovisual artwork impression of the sea. Colorful painted artwork elements are projected on the floor as you walk through the space. Analogue sound vibes slowly evolve in a mesmerizing minimal composition. As you create a visual and sonic symphony with the movement of your feet you are urged into a psychedelic dreamworld. And so you are immersed in this unique sea!
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
To give an impression of the #immersea experience we had a dancer move around in the space:
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
FRAGMENTS of land and other scapes: 30/10/2021 - 07/11/2021
LUCA Ghent: 08/06/2021 - 17/06/2021
KAPOW Ghent: 24/04/2021 - 25/04/2021
Get in touch if you’re interested to host this installation.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Artwork: Deogracias Kihalu
Animation & interactive magic: Kasper Jordaens
Music & sounddesign: Suntapes
Concept: Tomas Vanderplaetse, Kasper Jordaens, Deogracias Kihalu
An organic abstract audiovisual story by videographer Wim Piqueur and Suntapes. This was recorded as a live stream performance in March 2021 where live visuals and live music are interacting in a subtle manner. For this session we carefully selected abstract images and sounds to create a minimalist ambient flow. The result is tranquil, haunting at times and always with an immersive soul.
This studio session evolves around the warm character of my 1881 Bechstein grand piano. The piano is prepared with felt under the strings to create an even warmer and closer sound. The placing of the ribbon microphones is so that you can hear all sounds coming from the piano, including squeaks and the rubbing of the felt. Just like I hear it when I’m playing the piano. Big thanks to Jesse De Roo who recorded and mixed this session.
To start, I manipulate different sound sources inside the piano to extract dark filmic soundscapes. After that, I perform some new neoclassic compositions to let you dream away.
Director Jakob Rosseel created the visual atmosphere in my studio and captured the session on film. The result is a melancholic plunge inside the Bechstein with me. Since we can’t do real shows at the moment, we thought this augmented visual experience brings something you couldn’t experience in a real concert. I actually created the compositions around the idea of how to film it.
With support of the flemish government. This show was originally streamed on the Suntapes Facebook page. Now it’s available on Youtube.
MYSTERIOUS MINIMAL NEOCLASSIC AMBIENT: not exactly a catchy name for a new music genre, but it’s a fitting description of this Suntapes album.
