A. INTRO/PRESS PLEA
1. MATTERS OF TOUR
2. NEW RELEASES IN NOVEMBER 09
3. NEW TOUR SHIRT

A. INTRO

In three short weeks, I am heading to Holland, Belgium and Italy for a series of shows to support the imminent release of not one, but TWO new Drekka releases. I will have both in tow, along with a brand new tour shirt Sarah and I just designed.

If you are not in the path of the tour, and want to pre-order a t-shirt, I am taking orders now, and will ship them right before I leave for tour. See below (#3) for info.

I have made a little mini-site for the tour, if you want to take a look... all the info on the tour, plus some mp3s and press photos:

http://www.bluesanct.com/matters09

Speaking of press... I NEED YOUR HELP!

If you write for a blog, magazine, or know anyone who does... please get in touch! I would love to have a little fanfare to get the word out about the tour and releases. I have advance promos of the MORC 2CD in MP3 format or CDR format for review consideration... let me know and we can talk.

Well, thanks for reading my occasional email newsletters. I am so excited about this tour, which will include a selection of newly worked very old Drekka tracks, along with some sketches of new tracks for my 2010 new full-length, 'Tarwestraat 52'... but, more on that later.

I want to thank Wim, Annelies, Onga, Fra, Roy and everyone who has helped me with setting up shows for this tour. I will see you all soon.

1. MATTERS OF TOUR

from the 'MATTERS OF TONE' tour site: "I have been creating sound as DREKKA since 1996, although I have been recording and playing experimental music since 1986. In winter 2009, the Belgian label MORC will issue a double CD re-issue of my first two DREKKA cassette releases from 1996. In celebration of 13 years of sound.

The 2CD set is entitled 'Someday I will be called upon regarding matters of tone: Collected Works - Vol.1'

NOV 09 will be the first European tour for Drekka since 2005, when I toured with ANNELIES MONSERE (I also played multiple instruments in her band) and VOLLMAR (both of whom are on my record label, BLUESANCT). Previous European tours since 2002 have included tourmates RIVULETS (Important/Chairkickers) and JESSICA BAILIFF (Kranky); both of whom I also played ambient guitar for on tours.

For this tour, I have decided to tour alone, with no travel companions. My hope is that shows will include other like-minded experimental artists from the places I play. I hope that promoters will add other artists to the bills in interesting ways, so that I can meet other people who create soundspaces... to share ideas and make new friends.

DREKKA's sound is a hushed, cinematic, ambient, ethereal-folk... at times discordant and menacing, more often communicative and inviting. Influences include COIL, FLYING SAUCER ATTACK, HAFLER TRIO... contemporary examples of shared sounds would include SVARTE GREINER, LIBRARY TAPES, MACHINEFABRIEK and WOUTER VAN VELDHOVEN."

For TOUR DATES, MP3s and other cool stuff, visit the site:

http://www.bluesanct.com/matters09

2. NEW RELEASES IN NOVEMBER 09

COLLECTED WORKS - VOL.1 (2009, MORC RECORDS,. BELGIUM, MORC53)

1) 2009 marks the 13th Anniversary of my first recordings as Drekka. 13 winters since 1996, Drekka's European label, MORC RECORDS out of Belgium, issues a 2CD set with the lofty title "Someday I will be called upon regarding matters of tone: Collected Works - Volume One (1996)".

This will be limited to 300 copies and includes both Drekka's first fruits; two very different cassettes releases entitled 'Grieve' (August '96) and 'Windowframe EP'/'Hermitage One EP' (December '96). Also included is almost 30min of additional tracks which surrounded the three EPs; lost tracks and apocryphal windows.

The set comes in a beautiful printed cardboard 3-panel sleeve, w/ a hand-made 24pg book, printed and bound by me. The book contains the original cassette artwork, handwritten lyrics, photos and more.

ANCESTRAL CAVE SEQUENCE (2009, DIGITALIS LTD, LTD113)

2) Last January, Drekka did a multimedia performance with my friends Nathan Vollmar and Andrew Perry Davis... a sculpture exhibit with an accompanying film, I did a series of live improvised soundtracks to the film on the opening night.

Digitalis Industries, LTD (the cassette branch of the Foxy Digitalis empire) will be issuing a cassette entitled 'Ancestral Cave Sequence'. This release will be limited to 90 copies, and contains 42min of sound collage from the exhibition. The concept behind the pieces were to use tapes of friends performing Drekka songs and create a stream-of-conciousness dream poetry.

I am SUPER happy and excited about both these new releases, and I hope you will check them out.

If you are not on the path of the tour, I will have copies for sale on the mail order when I return home from tour and the holidaze settles down.

Or yo ucan email me and we can work it all out.

3. NEW TOUR SHIRT

It's been a LONG time since I made a new Drekka tshirt. Doug bought and destroyed most of the Bluesanctfest shirts back a few years ago... so, it was time to make a new one.

These new shirts will be navy blue w/ grey ink. If you pre-order one, I can make it in any size you wish. I plan to make the usual SM, MED, LG on an American Apparel cut shirt.

EMAIL ME AND TELL ME WHAT SIZE YOU WANT! I'll email you back with a total.

Here is a picture of the image: