Wim Maesschalk, better known as Wixel, is a Belgian musician who originally set up the label Slaapwel Records, the aim of which, as that name implies, is to provide “music to fall asleep to”. In a way that tells you all you need to know about Wixel, though his music is capable of a whole lot more than just sending one to sleep. His output isn’t large, and for the most part consists of his ‘2009 Project’, a series of 12 mini-albums he released a decade ago, each one on the last day of the month. Though these releases weren’t put out by Slaapwel their connection to sleep is extremely strong, and indeed one of the things i find most fascinating about them is that they don’t merely sound designed to accompany that unique kind of somnolent whooziness, but in many cases sound as if they were actually created in that very state. What this means is that the music has a tendency to veer quite sharply between grabbing one’s attention and seeming completely disinterested in doing anything more than just lethargic rambling. Such a division as that sounds pretty close to Brian Eno’s ‘interesting/ignorable’ dichotomy, and indeed Maesschalk wrote the following in his introduction to the fourth album in the series, Slaapliedjes [Lullabies], with regard to the practice (and difficulties) of utilising processes to aid creativity:
Trying to make good music every day of the week can be quite frustrating. Especially because you know it is impossible to make 12 records full with excellent melodies and sounds. … Suddenly I had the idea to forget about melodies, about rhythm, about shaping sounds. The only thing that would determine these songs is the density of notes and the choice of the instruments. … The consequence is that all [the] songs are very different, yet they sound very alike. … They all look very very similar, but they’re all quite unique. … All [the] songs are also part of my idea about “slaapwel records” music. They shouldn’t carry too many stories, but should reside on the thin line between pretty and boring.
Live in Lyon is an unedited 23-minute recording of one of Karkowski’s performances. The fact that it’s unedited is significant, as it highlights from time to time the way in which Karkowski wrangled with both the technology and the sound materials themselves, and the occasional dropouts and glitches that occur in no way sound like ‘mistakes’ but only add to the overall effect of the performance. Discussing Karkowski’s music to an extent necessitates looking broadly rather than at minutiae. It tends to unfold slowly, generally favouring evolution and transformation rather than abrupt cuts and shifts, and an important factor in engaging with it is the way one gradually becomes familiar with its discrete sound elements, a familiarity that Karkowski often makes crushingly intimate. 
Caesar’s art is beautiful and unsettling, and that’s not a bad description for Hidden Doors, a four-part journey through a soundscape that’s simultaneously stable – even, at times, borderline stagnant – yet with an omnipresent sense of threat. The first part sets up two layers of sound, one of which is positioned in the middleground, and consists of quiet, slightly glitchy burbling. The second layer involves various pitches being emphatically extruded in the foreground, sometimes piercing or juddering, other times acting in a more circumspect manner, lurking nearby. The relative strength of these two layers continually varies and wavers though extremely slowly, gently altering the depth and focus of the music. In the second and third parts there’s more of a sense of diverse elements being brought together. In the relatively brief Part II, there’s a sense of metamorphosis, of these elements combining to form something new. In less than three minutes it becomes a beautiful but strange, multi-faceted texture in which pitch and noise collide and jostle, as if it were reforming and breaking apart constantly. 
There’s so much i could write about in this series looking at free internet music, that i think it’ll be something i’ll have to return to regularly from now on. For the time being, though, i’m ending this series with an album that’s one of the most imaginative and effective reworkings of existing material that i’ve ever heard. It’s by Irish musician Dunk Murphy of whom, it must be said, i’ve seriously wondered over the last few years if he can do no wrong. He’s the creative force behind the project Sunken Foal, whose three Friday Syndrome volumes (released in 2012, 2013 and 2015) are all absolutely stunning demonstrations of his unique experimental approach to blending acoustic and electronic sounds into something that, stylistically speaking, is very hard to describe, but if we were to call it electronica then that wouldn’t be entirely untruthful.
It’s 
The next recommendations in my series looking at free internet music are a pair of pieces exploring extremes of computer-mangled audio. The first is a new release from Finnish composer Lassi Nikko, better known as Brothomstates, and even writing his name in the context of a new release – something i never thought i’d be able to do – has immediately put a big smile back on my face. i’ve been a Brothomstates fan for many, many years; since 2001 in fact, when Claro – a gloriously euphoric blend of ambient, electronica and IDM – was released on the Warp label. That in turn led to me plundering his back catalogue, both his 1998 self-released debut album Kobn-Tich-Ey (apparently one of the earliest ever MP3 album releases, which in many respects contains the seeds of what would become Claro) as well as his extensive collection of music created as part of the once vibrant 
While we’re still caught up in winter, and before the days get too much lighter, it’s one of the best times of the year to get stuck into the music of Belgian composer Pepijn Caudron, better known as Kreng. He came to my attention around six years ago, when Works for Abattoir Fermé 2007 – 2011 was released, a staggering 3-hour epic box set compiling his work for the eponymous surrealist theatrical troupe. It subsequently became my 
The Pleiades EP (originally subtitled ‘a.k.a. The Seven Sisters’) was originally released on the Dutch netlabel Fant00m in 2007. Its seven tracks occupy an electroacoustic soundworld similar to that permeating the box set, arranging its collection of recorded elements into a black ambient environment with a distinct air of theatricality. Their recurring rhythmic patterns – sometimes manifested as clear-cut beats, elsewhere more elusive cycles and repetitions – and the music’s claustrophobic monochromaticism bring to mind the better work of Demdike Stare, though Kreng is less concerned with conjuring up a past aesthetic – still less presenting an ersatz rendition of it – than with creating a contemporary habitat that feels aesthetically distant yet familiar, seemingly remote yet chokingly close. The careful deployment of short sampled sounds is also redolent of early John Wall, particularly third track ‘Asterope’, a short but evocative piece combining a bassline with skittery strings, vinyl crackle and a distant noodling piano, which together project something with more than a whiff of doomjazz. 
Next up in my series looking at free internet music is a triptych by Danish composer Martin Stig Andersen. To many, Andersen is likely best known for his award-winning music and sound design work on 
Returning to free internet music, the issue of quality control (from the composer’s or label’s perspective) and its concomitant necessity for careful discernment (from the listener’s) persists today, and is one that will feature in some of the music i’ll be discussing in this series. It certainly applies in the case of Canadian composer Mike Carss, who under the name 
Steady statism has connections (roots even) to, among other things, 20th century US experimentalism and ambient music, two areas that have had and continue to have significant influence on contemporary music-making. In Kirschner’s case, it remains a key part of his musical language, demonstrated in several of his most recent works (all of which are available for free download from 
