VI.BE

Onsturicheit – Biografie

Peter (28/11/1965) was born in Antwerp and got an acoustic guitar and an Roland JX-3P from his mother. This started is interest in music (besides collecting records from Beatles to Zappa, from Ashra Tempel to John Zorn, loving electronic music and psychedelic stuff such as Gong and Hawkwind to name just a few).

He started to play music in the eighties with a friend which led to a folk – pop band "Smeurebreud". In the nineties Peter relocated in Ghent where he met Jeroen Saegeman (The Walpurgis Family, Groom). They soon started a band called "The Moonfolks" (1996-2001 + 2018-….). With the new millennium arriving they played their last gigs in "De Kelder" and went separate ways( but have rejoined this summer). Peter bought a Tascam 4 track cassette recorder and a Loopstation. Electric Loopstation was born.

Electric Loopstation is a studio experiment with all kinds of gear and musical genres mixed together. The music, is often said, calls up strong filmic images and psychedelic moods. Apart from the more ambient/trance pieces there are also simple pop/rock songs. Mostly Peter plays all instruments himself but now and then he gets a helping hand from friends from his earlier bands. (https://www.discogs.com/artist/5341920-Electric-Loopstation). One piece was made for the renowed artists Renier&Depla called Receptacle: Hommage a Juan Munoz and A&A (2003-2004): A DVD made by Renier&Depla with Jonas Deprez (montage and effects) and Peter Moorkens (aka Electric Loopstation - Music). It was shown in two galleries.

Apart from this Peter also sang in a blues/rock/psychedelic band "Daisy and the Diving Duck" who played live covers and was essentially a jam band, he did a project called "Greetings from Watervliet" with Frans Van De Woestyne (Daisy, Golden Showers, Backseat Boppers). Only some demo’s and lots of jams on minidisc where the result of these collaborations.

With Lawrence Van Haecke (Wijlen Wij en Solicide) he did two unfinished projects called “Schlachthof Berlin” and “IAWEH” which is a combination of funeral doom and electropsychout. Due to lack of time these remain in the Vaults waiting to be finished although one remix with the above Frans (renamed Desert Frans) surfaced on facebook.

With the above projects on hold, Peter dived into more electronic music. It began as a another studio project but the urge to perform live was stronger, so the gear changed to smaller sequencers, samplers and synths. This live project was called Onsturicheit.

Onsturicheit is Dutch from the dark ages and it means turbulence, noise, wildness, unbridled, etc. And that’s just what it is: Electronic, unpredictable and so never the same. The keywords are soundscapes, samples, sequencers and textures. (https://www.discogs.com/artist/5341930-Onsturicheit)

In the beginning the instruments used where Korg Monotribes and electribes and the MS10. The Korg Volca’s soon replaced the monitribes because they were more compact and programmable. You can hear them a lot on the first albums. It one point (thanks Moog Mother 32 and Arturia Microbrute) Peter got trapped into modular synthesis and bought himself a system that is now part of the live setup. With modular synths the sound and the music is always unpredictable. One turn of a knob and everything can change. Peter never uses computers.

For live sets Peter often rebuild his modular case to get fresh sounds and ideas. Various field recordings are made or rhythmic sounds made with found objects, ethnical instruments are sampled. These recordings/files find their home in different sample and drum modules and they get a live treatment. In fact a live gig mostly starts with mangling these samples then slowly adding textures with his modular using looping effects and then at one point the sequencer jumps in and the drumcomputers kicks in with a wide pallet of sampled sounds. Most modular artist use sequencers or patch things up that generates melodies and changes but Peter likes to at keyboards to at solo’s or loop melodies on top of it all. Recently he’s been using guitars again in his live performances laying down soundscapes in combination with the samples. Only the sequences are preprogrammed, the rest is magic that happens live.

Peter is never shy to collaborate or jam with other artist. He’s been working together with Glenn Dick (Distorted Nude, Find Hope In Darkness, Klankdal, The great Northen Duo, ..), Joost Carpentier (Dreun, Connecting Silence, Cycles Of Moebius, ..) who also collaborated on the CD Impressions and will be on the next collab-release Dreunigheit.

The recent lockdown brought a new way to communicate with music. A new collaboration with Joost Carpentier called Dreunigheit was born (soon to be released). Another one with Butsenzeller for The Covid Collabs tape and recently Peter teamed up with Peter Verwimp of Ashtoreth. This last collaboration resulted in a full cd Svartur and two new CD’s are in the making right now.

Onsturicheit at played live at LittleAntennA, PostX, AntennA Festival, Pulse Fest, B-wave festival, Sonic Emmissions, Cassette Store day, .. and shared the stage with many: Alienna, Cycles Of Moebius, The Great Northen Duo, Bolt Ruin, Poltrock, Sebastopol, HHNOI, BySenses, Kaotec, ResonL & Yukunaï, Pieter Vermeyen, The Roswell Incident, …