...TAKING IT ALL BACK TO THE BEGINNING
1996... Michael Anderson takes on a new moniker for himself as he loses a friend, gains another and and decides to pack up and move from Boston to Chicago...
1996... DREKKA produces it's first fruits; two very different cassettes entitled 'Grieve' (August) and 'Windowframe EP'/'Hermitage One EP' (December)... The first captures the grief of loss, the hope of love, and the sounds of a vast empty New England house... the second captures a cramped, but cozy apartment and the first Chicago winter...
2009... WINTER... MORC RECORDS out of Gent, Belgium will issue a 2CD set entitled "Someday I will be called upon regarding matters of tone - Collected Works - Volume One", containing both cassettes in their entirety, plus all extant DREKKA recordings from 1996...
2009... 13 WINTERS LATER... time to review what has been done... and great a new decade with tour of Europe in NOV 2009...
2010... DREKKA will tour ICELAND in MAY/JUNE 2010... after this DREKKA will finish a new album, and continue archiving it's extensive archive of recordings for future volumes in the 'Collected Works' series.
THE ARTIST:
DREKKA is the work of MICHAEL ANDERSON, along with an occasional rotating cast of characters primarily drawn from the Day2 Alliance (a community and collective of artists, labels, musicians and filmmakers which has been creating experimental folk and skewed pop masterpieces for almost a decade). ANDERSON also runs BLUESANCT, a Day2 label responsible for releases by BLACK FOREST/BLACK SEA, BODUF SONGS, CINDYTALK, THE IDITAROD, IN GOWAN RING, LOW, PANTELEIMON, THE PILOT SHIPS (featuring members of STARS OF THE LID), STATIC FILMS, VOLLMAR and many more.
When DREKKA's debut full length ('Take care to fall') was released on Bluesanct in 2002, reviews incorrectly decided DREKKA was the vanity project a label owner. This is not the case. ANDERSON has recorded music and experimental projects, under various monikers, since 1986. Bluesanct was begun in 1996 to celebrate and share the music of DREKKA and its Day2 friends. DREKKA has toured extensively in Europe as well as the US (with like-minded artists such as JESSICA BAILIFF, THE IDITAROD, IN GOWAN RING, ANNELIES MONSERE, RIVULETS, STONE BREATH, VOLMAR, etc.) And despite only having released two proper full-length albums since 1998, it has contributed tracks to literally dozens of compilations as well as self-releasing many singles, EPs and short-run cassette releases.
In short, DREKKA has been a long-standing record collectors nightmare; a case that will soon be rectified with a series of releases collecting these varied and widespread orphans. The first in this series will be a DOUBLE-CD issued on MORC RECORDS this winter.
Affinity can be heard to such diverse contemporaries such as THE MICROPHONES/MT. EERIE, SVARTE GREINER, MACHINEFABRIEK and XIU XIU. While deep felt inspiration is drawn from such luminaries as FLYING SAUCER ATTACK, COIL, THE HALFER TRIO, CURRENT 93, and NURSE WITH WOUND.
SELECT REVIEW CLIPS:
'From the silent, sordid heartland of the midwestern US comes DREKKA, the many-armed musings of one Michael Anderson. Whether channeling the restless electricity of Coil or the cloudy backroom headspaces of Smog and Sebadoh, or deconstructing the work of its friends in the sprawling sonic underground, DREKKA tells a story very much its own, of chance meetings and blurred childhoods. It is the one story told repeatedly, blissfully reborn each time in its own love and self-forgetfulness.'
- Scott Ferguson
'a series of short films, bleeding ambient rainy days and nights into the somnambulant proceedings.'
- George Parsons, DREAM MAGAZINE
'Drekka is a dangerous artist to let lie in the shadows much longer. His sonic palette rivals any supposed master of musical shade. The scary part is he was doing it first; only no one noticed. Content to create on his own terms, he sits; waiting for you to come closer.'
- Rob Funkhouser, Foxy Digitalis
'Listening to Drekka is marginally better than being flicked in the eye by a child. I found their new project to make an excellent tea saucer as well as a convenient place to set down my used condoms' - e.p. hall