After we told our friend Raoul Bjorkenheim that van garden (aka JJ!) would be studying in Seoul for four months and that we’d all visit him one after another (a plan to keep him from being homesick) Raoul rushed to his album collection and played some of his favourite...

Coming in April, the first track from Michel’s new recording Ars Transmutatoria Iku-turso. The music was recorded last summer in Helsinki as he gathered a group of talented musicians, old friends from his days in their Krakatau band, to play his newest Ars Transmutatoria scores, a series based on...

This experimental jazz opera is a musical investigation into the mysteries of an ancestral tragedy from WWII, as revealed through vocal rituals, ancestral tarot, free jazz and dreaming. With this work I wanted to answer several questions. The first was, what could I do to honour ancestors who were...

Welcome to Michel’s Ars Transmutatoria virtual museum! You can enter the exhibition space and take a tour of the visual scores at the core of the upcoming music release. As well as inventing this virtual exhibition for you, Michel has created a limited edition boxed set that includes four...

Introducing Friday Night Inn, the new music label created by van garden and beamer!, aka JJ and Theo! Dirty Sand & Tree Thoughts by van garden Poetic Reconstruction, vol. 2: Costa Dorada by van garden Poetic Reconstruction, vol. 1: Montreal by van garden PLANET BEAM! by beamer! The first...

Perhaps it is logical that after spending some time singing my dreams I find myself carried along by complex ancestral stories. And what is the next logical step when that happens? Over the past year I have been researching different ways to deal with this kind of magical material...

When I finished reading every single book in the juvenile section of our local library as a kid, the librarian suggested I move along to romantic fiction. There I discovered the timeless novels of Emily Brontë, Jane Austen and so many more. Later I discovered the poems by Emily...

In this mournful period when the pandemic has taken hold of us all, one of our great sources of expression and comfort, singing together in public, was silenced. At the same time, finding myself at loose ends, I finally tackled some ancestral mysteries that had been popping up regularly...

song of the winter sprites by Jeannette Lambert Here is a bonus track for the album Genius Loci North. We recorded this track “song of the winter sprites” in March 2021 when we slipped away to a chalet by a lake near the Canadian/American border. It was cold and...

Here is a quick guide to where you can find the birdsongs and field recordings on Genius Loci North. Genius Loci North by Jeannette Lambert White throated sparrow Genius Loci North by Jeannette Lambert Loon tremolo Genius Loci North by Jeannette Lambert Crows and fireworks Genius Loci North by...