Artists
• The Dandelion Council
• Forestflies
• Luga
• Filmjölk
• Odkid
• Chronik
• Jess Lipworth
• Jash
• -Scaldis-
• Deceptikon
• Hura Yup
• Daschön
• Patrick Balthrop
• Pleq
• Nurthice
• Interconnected
• Skurken
The Dandelion Council
The Dandelion Council is comprised of Pip Craighead and friends. Pip Craighead grew up near the mountains in Southern California. The Dandelion Council is an earnest attempt at the aesthetic distillation of starlight hikes, quiet moments, Caspar David Friedrich, secret places, children’s stories, whispered poems, hugs, lo-fi folk music, owls, warped cassette tapes, warm beds, mountaintop observatories, deep forests, lens flares, nautiloids, utopian architecture, Olivier Messiaen’s theories on birdsong as “the lost face of music,” the sound of your own breathing, 1970s disillusioned science fiction, emotional nakedness, geodesic domes, ruins, the passage of time, crickets, the Pacific Northwest, the sea, blood, tears, spiral galaxies - the mystery and the majesty of the love of God.
Yesterday, today and forever (VU-US002)
Forestflies
Forestflies is the sideproject of David Wenngren’s library tapes. David is living in Gothenburg, Sweden.
His music under the name Forestflies is often more ambient and has less focus on the piano. It concentrates more
on soundscapes than structure compared to library tapes.
Forestflies has so far released 3 full-length albums spread over the labels vu-us and make mine music.
Forestflies (VU-US007)
Luga
Luga, after years of playing in bands, found that other people only held him back and in 2006 he made a complete break.
Now he works alone with only a laptop for company weaving together wide ranging influences spanning shoegaze, breaks, electronica, folk and much more into an etherial ambient sound that is all his own.
His album has been released on VU-US.
Bound by indifference (VU-US005)
Filmjölk
Filmjölk (Ingrid Jossieaux) comes from a little village in Belgium and learned to read music and to play the piano since childhood. Her interest in early electronic and contemporary music lead her in 2007 to a gratuation in musicology at University.In 2006, suffering from the sleeping disease (mononucleosis), time stopped. During the few hours of awakening, she composed on her laptop electronic and ambient oriented music where pop structured melodies and basic harmonies meet haunted atmospheres.
Mononucleosis (VU-US016)
OdKid
Odkid is from the small town of Joutseno, southeast Finland and now lives in Tampere, Finland. He started out playing in local rock bands but quite soon lost interest to conventional rock’s rigid structures and sounds and started experimenting in the basement. Nature, sci-fi, philosophy, and most of all the seasons and the isolation of small town life were big influences.
Borrowed drum machines, cheap effects, dad’s old gear from the 70’s and 4-track cassetterecorders began to lead the way in experimenting and the soundscapes created. At the time (circa 2000) odkid didn’t listen to ambient music at all, more or less indie-rock and heavy metal were comparison points for him. As a result of years and piles of 4-track tapes, odkid self-released the album “i Is A Black Hole” of 50 copies in 2005 and it was followed by vu-us released album “Space Filler Tracks” in 2007.
Odkid also composes singer-songwriter material in Finnish and English under the moniker O’Joe, has played bass from time to time in his cousin Drowsy’s alt-country songs and is the other half of the electro-folk duo the Solar Apparatus along with his friend l.a.ur.i.
Space Filler Tracks (VU-US006)
Chronik
Chronik was born in Athens in 1974. His relationship with music started working as a radio producer for jazzfm in the early 90s’ and as a columnist for various music magazines. He began creating music about 5 years ago and today his focus is on minimal ambient based mainly in the piano, characterized by cinematography, melancholy, scattered notes and long melodies that form expressive engagements. Collaborations constitute his basic core of inspiration and motivation for creating music. The last two years Chronik has collaborated with Roger Döring (aka Dictaphone). They have performed together live in Berlin and Athens and are working on a new album. Other ongoing projects are “piannou” with the pianist Rannou Todea from Romania, Teamforest, Me Succeed, Sophie Josephin, Monokid and K.I.S.KISMET. Chronik has produced the original score music for the film “Inside a Change” from New York and Channel Three 21 productions, expected in the beginning of next year. His new album called “Speechless” was released a year ago by the independent Belgian company VU-US.
Speechless (VU-US011)
Jess Lipworth
Jess Lipworth leapt out of his hip-hop background into a warm Jacuzzi of melodic piano and manipulated strings…however leaving one foot out…unable to fully turn his back on his foundations. In the middle is where he found the balance and so came the quest for creating a sound to accompany the nightly activity of dreams…and how they misinterpret our actual memories while we meander through life unaware of the truth.Living in South Africa for his twenty-six years has enabled Jess to experience the natural beauty of his continent as well as the barbaric violence that plagues his country to this day. He lives with his wife and daughter, humbly in a small cottage on his grandfather’s farm in Natal and by day manages a video store.Having recently found God, Jess Lipworth’ music has taken a leap into ‘joy-zone’ and a new album is on it’s way and is inspired by how we as humans are able to experience an entire life-time of happiness through seconds of mental sifting. Expect surprises.
Meandering through (VU-US009)
Jash
Jash is a producer living in the west country of England. He has been making music in one form or another for well over 10 years. It was around 1998 that he was first given a copy of fruity loops and began making electronic music. Having an instrumental percussive background means that this influence features strongly in his music, at times strong diverse rhythmic elements converge onto one another, making you forget time and space. Audio processing, manipulation and cutting up of samples are among the other layers of sound that jash uses to create the unique vibe in his music. Having no formal music background or education to speak of, his music making is entirely emotion and ear based. Thus the creation of the phrase : “Feelings develop into sound”. Jash has past releases with White Label Music, VU-US and Envizage Records.
The great divide (VU-US008)
-Scaldis-
-Scaldis- are a Belgium duo formed by Jef Aerts and Maarten Voeten. After releasing their debut album on U-cover records, they founded their own indie electronic label in 2007, called VU-US. Their music is mainly influenced by common things in daily life, such as nature, industry, work, art, friends and family, 8-bit computer games, old movies, other artists, and of course big dreams. By juggling with audio and visuals, they try to create an atmosphere that reflects their mood and feelings. It helps them to escape from their stressful lives.
New Album (2009)
Deceptikon
Deceptikon was born out of the ash and dried magma of Northwest Cascadia, after the eruption of Mount Saint Helens in 1980. Recently relocated to Tokyo via Seattle, he spends his time making music for the future, a soundtrack for retro-minded space travellers and skiff-jumpers from the 23rd dimension.He has toured extensively throughout the US, Canada, and Japan. He has shared the stage with Funkstorung, Daedelus, Richard Devine, Machine Drum, Lusine, edIT, Dose One, Blue Scholars, Truckasaurus, Proem, Deru, Safety Scissors, [A]pendics Shuffle, Books On Tape, Nudge, Strategy, Twine, Solenoid, and Brothomstates (among many others).
Greater Cascadia (VU-US013)
Hura Yup
Hura Yup also know as Gabriele Di Stefano, lives in Rome, Italy.After a musical path that lead him from hip hop to indie-rock, in 2005 he finds electronic music the genre that suits his needs to express himself at best and in the same year his first release is out: an 8-tracks EP entitled “Cellophane” out on Retinascan, a german netlabel. Finally on the right track, he starts exploring with his sounds and researching for a style (which he defines as in perpetual and continuous constant update). He describes his music as intimate, melodic, warm and enveloping, introverted, vaguely shoegaze, crafted using with processed guitars, toy instruments blended together with acoustic instruments, field recordings, synthetic textures that expand densely, rocking in a twee mood to reach solemn constructions. He is currently producing the original soundtrack for a movie called “Avevamo vent’anni” directed by Ivan Silvestrini and co-produced by Medusa Film.
Half Wolf (VU-US014)
Daschön
Daschön is the side project of Damien L, a french autodidact artist who has been composing music for about 8 years. Influenced mostly by japanese and german scenes, he came quite belatedly to electronic music. After many abortive projects, he has decided to consider music composition seriously. Working mainly with software and a midi controller, the utilization of field recordings give his music an emotional face. Between IDM and Ambient music, Daschön is always trying to transmit emotions which are anchored in his mind. In 2008, he has released some tracks on Dedpop Netlabel (UK) and F|M Records (Singapour). His first album has been released on january 2009 on the Belgium based label, VU-US.
Traumatic (VU-US012)
Patrick Balthrop
Patrick Balthrop, electronic musician and sound designer, uses custom-built software to produce electronic music. Based in Boston, Patrick has released surround sound designs and albums internationally over the past 6 years. Recorded over the course of a long winter, “Phantom Army” is Patrick’s debut on vu-us. On “Phantom Army” Patrick morphs baritone guitar and gamelan into warm rhythmic textures: Organic sounds made from traditional instruments dance over digital micro-edited percussion, beats, and vocal edits. Patrick has developed a set of performance based plug-ins that play an integral role in the digital manipulation heard on “Phantom Army”: interactions and transformations continuously regenerate and redefine the audio signals that produced them.
Phantom Army (VU-US010)
Pleq
Pleq is an ingenious experimental project by Bartosz Dziadosz. I was born in 1983. Philosophy student. Based in Katowice, Poland; Pleq has developed his highly-synthetic competencies through a series of disreality attempts, monastery supervision and a truly Romantic way of handling peer pressure. His motives in sound resemble an abandoned ironworks garage during the industrial revolution, where melancholy is paired with harmonies of magnetizing structure. Pleq’s initial exposure began with a weekly residency at Elektro Klub, a nationally recognized sanctuary for circuit-fitted audience. Pleq’s music is the final answer to understanding social obedience through sound.
The Fallen Love (VU-US015)
Nurthice
Nurthice aka Yulian Zanev, was born on a cold October’s day in 1986 in Sofia, Bulgaria. He started making music at a very young age, playing guitars, keyboards and various other instruments with friends.
His taste for old analog equipment developed through the years, and combined with his distinctive melodies evolved in a unique style, unbounded by genre descriptions.
Otono (VU-US017)
Interconnected
Interconnected is a collaborative electronica/ idm/ experimental project between Bakis Sirros (of Parallel Worlds, Memory Geist) and Ingo Zobel (of DRON, Signalform, Self Oscillate, Data-sette). Both guys are heavy into analogue modular systems which makes their sound very unique and organic. Check out their debut album “Current Flow”, an aural voyage beyond your imagination!
Current Flow (VU-US018)
Skurken
Skurken is the artist name of Jóhann Ómarsson, a musician based in Reykjavík, Iceland.
His music consists of somewhat glitchy electronica with less emphasis on the ‘glitch’ and more on good old melody.
Skurken’s influences include everything from corny 80’s ballads to late 90’s drill&bassand old computer game themes. And probably elves and nature too.
Das Plakat (VU-US019)