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About

Slaapwel Records is a small record label specialized in music to fall asleep to.

Wim Maesschalck aka Wixel, who started the label, often found himself lying awake in bed, not sleepy enough to fall asleep, not lively enough to keep doing stuff. He figured it would be good if there was more music that soundtracks the thin border between being asleep and lying awake, deliberately choosing the sleepy side of things. So he set out, looking for people that would be good at making mind-soothing songs.

He asked them to write a sleep-inducing record, he listened to it, and when he failed to reach the end because he fell asleep, he released it as a musical record. All artists are various people he met through the years, different yet all connected with their unique talent, yet all very good at making "boring" music. This is not an insult.

"I love their music to death and I think they are all very capable of making wonderful sleep-inducing songs. In any case, don't make too much of it. It is all just good fun. Sleepy fun."

And that is still the philosophy of Slaapwel Records today. 

 

Demo Policy

We're really humbled by all the requests for releasing a record.

It's very flattering you think Slaapwel could be a good home, but, in all honesty: if you made an album and you're looking for a label to release it: Slaapwel can't do that for you.

Slaapwel only releases albums specifically made for people to fall asleep to. Much like scientists, we do a test with each submission before releasing it.

If you want to make something special, feel free to send it over. We promise we'll try it out, if it works, we'll get back to you, if it doesn't, we prefer staying quiet because it is no fun to say it didn't work. :-) 


Elsewhere
Monday
Aug202007

Wouter van Veldhoven

Ruststukken by Wouter van Veldhoven

Hailing from Utrecht, the Netherlands, Wouter van Veldhoven is the musician behind the first slaapwel record. His tape-experiments provide listeners with beautiful decaying sounds, bathing in a sweet swirling hiss. I find those sounds and loops so soothing and gentle that I thought Wouter would make an excellent artist to record an album to fall asleep to. Wouter seemed to really like the idea and within a week or two he made "Ruststukken", a beautiful EP compromised of two long sleep-inducing songs. The first song is called "Stoffig Stuk" and is basicly Wouter re-interpreting the infamous "Stofstuk" by Machinefabriek. It is followed by my favourite piece of him; "Stukke Rust" a 20 minute epic that builds up with a melancholic melodica, hiss, acoustic guitars and other otherworldly sounds. I can only describe it as if Yann Tiersen and William Basinski decided to record together. I suppose it's not hard to imagine for you how awesome that must sound. The artwork for this one is extremely special. All boxes are handpainted with glitters and a sparkly star. An Vandesompele designed them and I must say she did an incredible job. It's probably the most beautiful box I own in my record collection.

MP3/FLAC download available.

 

• slaapwel i • sold out • released 20.08.2007 • limited edition (100) •

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