Het Zweet — Het Zweet
Het Zweet (Sweat) aka Netherlands, Breda-based Marien van Oers- were a primal-to-abstract industrial project that operated between the years 1983 & 1988. This self-titled CD release brings together the project's fourth album, along with five never released tracks from the same time.
The release appears on Austria’s Klanggalerie- one of the key labels reissuing some of the more obscure ‘n’ creative experimental music from the 70s and 80s. The CD comes presented in a white four-panel digipak, which features on its front a quirky project text cover, and inside black text track listings. This release is Ltd to just 300 copies.
In all the Het Zweet project released four albums, and one split C60 with Forced Run. As well as seven short releases- with two compilations appearing too, an untitled one from 1984, and a two-LP & CD set entitled Archives 82-88 Vol.1 on Greece’s Modal Analysis. Going from the sound on this CD- the project was often very sparse, and trance-inducing in its feel- with some very heavy rhythmic tribal leanings, which brought to mind the more primal/ base material released by the likes of Z'EV- though with more subtle, to more pronounced chanting/ vocal elements
So, the CD takes in thirteen tracks in all- eight from the 1987 self-titled album that appeared on German's Dossier label, and the remaining five tracks are unreleased- three studio recordings, and two live recordings. The release moves from the set marching, faintly locked chanting, and texturally reeling flow of “From The Lowland”. Onto organic-yet-urgent “Wild Man” with its set tribal rhythm hits, and subtly shifting backdrop of ambient tones & distant chants. There are the tight & enclosing electro-hammering beats of “On Earth” which is underfed by faint ritual horn drifts, and complex but difficult-to-define chants.
Moving onto the precisely unreleased material- we go from slurred pulsing-come-stark clunking meets lightly skittering electro-noise scraps of “Untitled One”. We have the brooding hazed drone ‘n’ bone horn meets urgent glamouring ritual percussion of “Untitled Two”. And the two live tracks/ excepts highlight the project's more shouty/pronounced vocal moments, in a battering ‘n’ lose percussive industrial jam-like setting.
Sadly the man behind Het Zweet Marien Van Oers passed away in 2013. So, it’s great Klanggalerie is persevering a part of his legacy here. If you enjoy the more primal-to-abstract side of the 1980s industrial genre, this will be something you’ll want to check out….but don’t hang around too long, because as I mentioned this is only a pressing of 300 copies!.