Belgium?s underground is a fertile swamp. Centred around labels like Ultra Eczema, Veglia, Bread and Animals, Funeral Folk, Audiobot and Sloow Tapes they match their U.K. and U.S. brethren in sheer freaked out madness. They also have some great musical projects going. Like lo-fi fascist Ignatz, up and coming apocalyptic folk hero Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, satanic goat worshippers Silvester Anfang, cut up whatever whatever R.O.T.. And Orphan Fairytale, which is a girl named Eva van Deuren, also part of junk-fi drone pirates Frozen Corpse, together with Carlo Audiobot, limited to two corpses which come in cold Belgian skin with art by the Man himself.

Orphan Fairytale?s main instrument of choice is the keyboard but she manages to make every sound a seemingly unique one. ?Twilight Time??s sixty minutes start with a rhythmic, industrial sounding drone piece, blocks of clanging beats that sound like they?re stuck together with cheap glue. Not the best opener to start this tape off with but it shows her range as far as the keyboard goes.

The second piece has her toying with broken music box sounds that come off as totally twisted and somewhat crude, a weirdo sound world full of hiccuping loops and distorted vocal stardust underneath it all. All those sounds she cooks up have this somewhat dusty quality to them, as if they were sampled from a lost teenager Klaus Schulze demo.

The last and longest track on ?Twilight Time? is Orphan Fairytale at her most zoned out and convincing. A dense, brooding drone eclipses pretty much any sound she got going on as well and it keeps on like a damn key on her board got stuck or something. Slowly there are traces of vocals to be heard and the piece completely takes off after it?s one minute mark. Out of this world and so good to immerse yourself in.

All these Sloow Tapes sell out like crazy but I?m sure some of your bookmarked mailorders still have a copy hanging around. It?s worth the hunt so check it out. 8/10 -- Joris Heemskerk (15 May, 2007)