djb (aka Thomas de Rijk) is releasing album dood & verderf via the Newcastle Upon Thyne’s Opal Tapes on September 20, with a music video for track ‘Ondersteboven’ premiering on AQNB today. The Amsterdam-based producer takes his name from the initialism for ‘dow jones brotherhood’, created by the artist as a kind of red herring for constructing “a conspiracy theory, self-mythologising the work with meaning which does not exist.”
Featuring a bilingual listing of tracks with names like ‘Thou Art’, ‘sterven = leven’ and ‘foraging’, the record is a playful take on the notion of dread, using a maximal, abrasive ambient style, alongside darker pop elements. ‘Ondersteboven’ translates from Dutch into English as ‘upside down’ and its sideways descent into harsh atmospheric sweeps and twisting synth keys reflects that. The accompanying video is equally limitless, as a rendering of a glassy CGI liquid drops downward yet floating, frozen yet falling, as it’s suspended in slow but terminal velocity.**
djb dood & verderf album is out via the Newcastle Upon Thyne’s Opal Tapes on Sep 20, 2019.
