DREKKA BIO and 2009 TOUR -

THE TOUR:
"I have been creating sound as DREKKA since 1996, although I have been recording and playing experimental music since 1986. In winter 2009, the Belgian label MORC will issue a double CD re-issue of my first two DREKKA cassette releases from 1996. In celebration of 13 years of sound.

The 2CD set is entitled 'Someday I will be called upon regarding matters of tone: Collected Works - Vol.1'

DIGITALIS INDUSTRIES will also release a new full-length live cassette by DREKKA in November to coincide with the tour. This tape is entitled 'Ancestral Cave Sequence'.

To celebrate these two new releases, I decided to go on tour.

NOV 09 will be the first European tour for Drekka since 2005, when I toured with ANNELIES MONSERE (I also played multiple instruments in her band) and VOLLMAR (both of whom are on my record label, BLUESANCT). Previous European tours since 2002 have included tourmates RIVULETS (Important/Chairkickers) and JESSICA BAILIFF (Kranky); both of whom I also played ambient guitar for on tours.

For this tour, I have decided to tour alone, with no travel companions. My hope is that shows will include other like-minded experimental artists from the places I play. I hope that promoters will add other artists to the bills in interesting ways, so that I can meet other people who create soundspaces... to share ideas and make new friends.

DREKKA's sound is a hushed, cinematic, ambient, ethereal-folk... at times discordant and menacing, more often communicative and inviting. Influences include COIL, FLYING SAUCER ATTACK, HAFLER TRIO... contemporary examples of shared sounds would include SVARTE GREINER, LIBRARY TAPES, MACHINEFABRIEK and WOUTER VAN VELDHOVEN."

- MICHAEL ANDERSON, SEPTEMBER 2009

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, PANTALEIMON, 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, VOLLMAR, 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