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Bottom curve

Released October 1st 2017.

Format: Ltd CD (150 copies) in hand assembled package.

£5 including postage UK and Europe.

Hey it’s time to get all your Windham Hill CDs out. Stack them up end to end. Take your clothes off and wait for the apocalypse. Coz as sure as shit you are going to need a soundtrack. And you can kiss your guitar bass drums goodbye, because lilting tidal grooves are in. We all need something to ease the hypertension of high pressure and the disappointment of life and your so called close friends around you. The latest Van ticks all the ambient boxes, in fact there are not boxes they are Himalayan Buddha music boxes. Breathe in, breathe out...sleep

QST is one of many projects captained by Frans De Waard this time he navigates into the calm waters of 90s ambient with an occasional ripple of house.

Just 150 copies in hand assembled CD package and maybe some digital bandwith.

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REVIEWS

"Sometimes one gets the idea the mind is playing tricks, upon only having read a title. Silent cooking, as in: didn't Moog's have a baseline sound of their own? And isn't the silence just a flick of the finger away, away from the ipad-screen or the computer's mouse? Oh well, never mind, maybe.

Frans de Waard's QST has cooked up quite the stew here. ‘The Silent Cookbook’ is one heck of a synth record. One might be tempted to lump this into the ambient-with-a-beat territory and fair enough: some tunes are not that far off from Biosphere's N-Plants.

Then again, the all-encompassing feel of this record marries gentle, lilting grooves with a kraut-inspired mellow motorik and futuristic shine. There's a shimmer of chrome covering all eight tracks; shiny, end-times-y but not un-merry.

De Waard under his QST moniker is more danceable than one might expect from his many other projects. He even pushes the beat boat out so far one might be slowly but very surely finding some footing on terra firma in fringe areas of house music. And more than a tad, there's an over-arching feeling Jean-Michel Jarre could've (should've, maybe, too?) made some of these tracks or at least elements thereof.

‘The Silent Cookbook’ is dreamy and peachy, pristine synth pop ambient at full throttle. Deep space laser sharp etched grooves, so playful one could mistake these for ironic pastiche. Solid steel synthscapes galore reign supreme here with massive ambiences and textures and plenty of rhythm to boot. Plus: lovingly released by the epic Static Caravan label in a hand-assembled edition of only 150 copies. So I suggest you don't wait this one out. The future is now, no time to waste." [Vital Weekly]