And now the year officially gets going with brilliant release by Mark Van Hoen. “The Revenant Diary” is out this month on Editions Mego and arguably it’s his pinnacle, truly haunting piece of weighted beats, analogue synthesizer drones and granular dirt and the unidentified, siren-like female voices. To coincide with the release of new album, Mark Van Hoen has put together a special, equally evocative mixtape for Pontone.
Download the mixtape (right click > save as)
PLAYLIST:
- Eduard Artemyev – Train (Stalker Soundtrack) / Simon & Garfunkel -The Sound Of Silence
- Gyorgi Ligeti – Lux Aeterna (Requiem For A Dream) / Eurythmics – Love Is A Stranger
- Nattymari – IIIY IIIEIIIE
- Sunsetcorp – Angel
- Jean-Michel Jarre – Equinox / Klimek – Pathways To Work
- Brian Eno – Slow Water
- Sunsetcorp – Nobody Here
- Tangerine Dream – White Eagle
- Oneohtrix Point Never – Physical Memory
- Japan – the Experience Of Swimming
- Edgar Froese – Panorphelia
- Micheal Rother – Feuerland
- Leila – Underwaters
- Gary Numan – Complex
- LFO – Freeze
- Mark Van Hoen – Truancy
- Daphne Oram – Bird Of Parallax
- Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark – Georgia (Coda) / Sealand
- Delia Derbyshire – Blue Veils And Golden Sands
- The Human League – The Path Of Least Resistance
- David Bowie & Brian Eno – All Saints
- Roxy Music – Sultanesque
- Cluster – Hollywood
- Tangerine Dream – Phaedra
Mark Van Hoen (born September 1966 in London, England) is an electronic music artist. He has created music under his own name as well as Locust, and Autocreation. He was a founder member of the influential group Seefeel. The BBC said, “in a brief listen one can hear the influence on Boards of Canada’s damaged melodies and dense claustrophobia, more so even than usual suspects like the Aphex Twin.” Pitchfork said, “Musically, Van Hoen belongs to a distinguished family tree. Originally influenced by the likes of Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream, and later presaging both Autechre’s glitch and Boards of Canada’s pastoral IDM, with his latest album Van Hoen would fit in just as well alongside White Rainbow or Atlas Sound on a current label like Kranky: He combines oceanic drone with pop lyricism, using technology as a catalyst..”
Mark Van Hoen signed with Belgian Label R&S in 1993. The initial releases were as Locust and used vintage analogue synthesizers and tape recorders. As the Locust sound moved towards an increasingly more vocal oriented approach in the late 90s, Mark Van Hoen also began to release music under his own name.
Born in Croydon, England (26 September 1966), grew up in Smethwick (part of The Black Country, an industrial area in the Midlands of England).He began to create electronic music in 1981. In 1983 Mark embarked on a career in radio and moved to London in 1988, during the acid house explosion. In 1993,R&S Records signed Mark Van Hoen after attending a live performance at the Quirky club in Brixton, London, in which Van Hoen utilized a bank of analog modular systems for the performance. This unusual approach within the ambient electronic genre of the early 90′s set the tone for the initial releases during a prolific period in the 90′s. By 1995, Van Hoen had become one of the first to create Digital Signal Processing (DSP) dominated music with his album ‘Truth Is Born Of Arguments’, and in the late 90′s moved increasingly into vocal music with various collaborations and productions with ex-members of Slowdive, Lush (band),, Cocteau Twins & Seefeel, as well as legends Robert Fripp and Roger Waters. In the 2000′s Van Hoen’s musical output slowed somewhat due to family life, but then a move to Brooklyn, NY in 2008 (as well as the discovery of his true family lineage, including his brother, reggae artist and erstwhile member of Culture (band), George Subratie) has brought on a new phase of creativity with releases “Where Is The Truth’ (2010, City Centre Offices) and ‘The Revenant Diary’ (Editions Mego, 2012).
