featuring Jan Van den Broeke — 84 More Dreams (STROOM.tv, 2026) Jan Van den Broeke (Absent Music, June11, The Misz) — 11,000 Dreams (STROOM, 2017) The Misz — “Tameless Horses” and “Only Lunies Fall” (on Underground Waves Vol. 2, Walhalla Records, 2020)

many names, one sound: a voice that hardly sings, a language that arrives a little late, and an archive that opens a box at a time.

i have followed the repertoire of Jan Van den Broeke for a few years now. he lives in Ghent, has been making music since the early 1980s, and works under many names: Absent Music, June11, The Misz. my way in was 11,000 Dreams (STROOM, 2017), a compilation across three of those names, where “Akahito” lives; this month i bought my first physical release of his, 84 More Dreams (STROOM.tv, 20 October 2026), four tracks under two of the names.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

what holds me first is that the names do not change the sound. Fernando Pessoa gave each of his heteronyms a style of its own; Van den Broeke, to my ear, gives every name the same one, and the same simplicity runs through all of them: minimal synth, nothing added that is not needed. it is this economy that lets one sound carry across so many records and so many years.

over that sound he sings extremely simply, almost speaking: a deadpan voice set down in the room rather than delivered. and now and then another voice enters, a woman’s, and the way she pronounces the words reminds me of post-synchronisation: speech recorded after the picture is shot and laid back over the image. in the film theorist Michel Chion’s word, the weld between sound and image, synchresis, comes undone, and for a moment you hear the seam. there is no picture on a record, but the effect survives: a voice that seems laid over the music instead of rising out of it. that gap is her peculiar appeal.

and the same seam runs through time. most of what STROOM releases of his was made in the 1980s, and it arrives now remastered, with the crispness of today laid over yesterday’s tape. the shop notes for Lost and Latest (EE Tapes, 2020) say as much: material from 1984 to 2020, six pieces unreleased, everything remixed and remastered in 2019–20. so it is less restoration than a belated arrival: finished music that waited decades for its release, and is given, only now, the clarity of the present. to my ears it plays like found tape, an archive that opens one box at a time. i do not know whether any of it is new, and perhaps he is still making more; it is only what i hear.

three i return to:

𓃗
“Tameless Horses” (The Misz, on Underground Waves Vol. 2, Walhalla Records, 2020).

𓊔
“Only Lunies Fall” (The Misz, on Underground Waves Vol. 2, Walhalla Records, 2020).

⚔
“Akahito” (Absent Music, on 11,000 Dreams, 2017)

relatedSounding 007 — Leere