PiP & Ambroos De Schepper - Sans Loup (Zitstill)

The Slow Music Movement
3 days ago
2 min read

PiP is short for Pepijn Gyssels, a Brussels based electronic music producer, sound collector, DJ & promotor who's on a mission to harvest life's surface noise and reconstruct it into listening experiences. For Sans Loup and its soon to be released EP, he's teamed up with fellow Brussels tripper, saxophonist Ambroos De Schepper who is better known for his part in the jazztronic Bandler Ching, and who obviously shares a similarly outsider musical vision.

PiP's manifesto is to create soundscapes that invite people to slow down (my sort of guy!), tune in to the music and take a moment to soak it up, so much so he's also created the Zitstill label and is on the look out for like minded artists to join him on the sofa. He's not messing around either with the Sans Loup EP getting a vinyl press.

Sans Loup is the EP's title track and it's an improvisatory affair as you'd perhaps expect with Shepper on board, who would turn up on studio recording days with his sax, clarinet, FX pedals and anything else that took his fancy that morning. Driving the sessions with his whimsical approach, Gyssels would then pick up the pieces, augment them with electronics, arrange and then mix the recordings.

"Sans Loup" is one of those pleasingly hard to categorize tracks. Shepper is in etheral mood, sounding like he had a late night and recorded this day's session from the studio couch, his wind instruments barely breaking a sweat as they amble through various effects units. Gyssels wisely goes with the flow providing some some muted, suitably unhurried percussion and bass notes that anchor the gently swirling wind instruments, and adds some some distorted vocal snippets and random but synergistic sonic details for good measure.

The track is a singular abstract jazz soundscape that sounds like a Sam Gendel and Joseph Shabason love child, and you shouldn't need much more encouragement to take a listen than that. I look forward to checking the EP on May 11th.