dirk wachtelaer

Dirk Wachtelaer is a drummer and improviser who is also active in sound art. Born and based in Belgium, he constantly crosses borders by collaborating with artists from all cultures and disciplines. He has many years of experience in a wide range of styles such as jazz, rock, electronic music, African and Asian music. An immersion in a surprising sound world, using both regular drumming techniques, extended techniques and aleatoric processes, is therefore the result!

Always looking for new challenges, he regularly performs as a soloist and has collaborated with numerous artists. These included long-term collaborations with Toshinori Kondo, Paul Schutze (Phantom city with Bill Laswell, Raul Bjorkenheim ao), Stevie Wishart (Transient, and also in duo), Luk Mishalle and Pablo's Eye, among others. He played with Trevor Watts, Paul Lytton, David Toop, Michel Henritzi and Philip Clemo, to name a few. Besides Europe, he was also active in countries like Japan, India, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, where he played with musicians such as Ngo Tra My (dan bao), Iman Jimbot (kacapi), Yong Yandsen (sax) and Sie-Wai Kok (vocals).

In the late 1990s, he founded the ensemble Vanishing Pictures. All the music was improvised (sometimes using graphic scores) and included abstract soundscapes as well as energetic free explosions and traditional folk. Because it was more of a community than an ensemble, there was no permanent lineup. Some of the ever-changing members were Otomo Yoshihide, Philipp Wachsmann, Michael Weilacher, I Made Wardana, DJ Grazzhoppa, Gerrit Valckenaers, Pierre Bastien and many others ...

He also works with electronics as an extension of acoustic drums. This work can take different forms: combining acoustic drums with electronics, sampling acoustic drums and processing those samples live, programming drum parts, toy electronics ...

He is passionate about interdisciplinary and collaborative work and regularly collaborates with artists from dance, theater and visual arts. Productions include Midsummer Night's Dream (puppet theater Froe Froe), How To Vanish (video with Harald Busch), Tutti Timbri (with dancer Eko Noah).

His recent activities concentrate on his international duos, one with Dirk Johan Stromberg (US/SG, playing his self-developed instrument the Fryprone) and one with Fabio Rambelli (US/IT, playing the traditional Japanese instruments the sho and the u). In Belgium he often works with JJ Duerinckx, in duo and also in the trio Silence Collapse (with Gert De Meester). Other regular collaborations are with Ana Foutel (AR), Olexiy Mikryukov (UA) and Markus Breuss (CH/ES).

In addition to music, he also makes videos and has collaborated in this way with Alfred23Harth, Pablo Bas and Ana Fridman.