30.05.2022

Recorded between June & December 2021 in Den Haag NL
All tracks written and produced by Val Clipp

Mastered by Kamilė Rimkutė

Lyrics and vocals
on 'again' by $paceking416
on 'hand gestures' by Noa Kurzweil

'chase sequence' contains a sample of 'Centro Gris' by nueen

Cover photos, Screenshots & Design by Luca van Grinsven

Thank you Noa, Levi, Lucie, Hilde, Vinzenz, to my friends
& collaborators for their critical ears and sincerity,
& to everybody listening, sharing and supporting

05.11.2021

«I don’t feel safe most of the time.

I am on constant alert.

Cars have always been where I felt safest throughout my life.

In the past, cars have been a home when my body has not, a refuge when my bedroom was not, a party when the club was not; an escape, shelter, security.

Cars can injure or kill, cars pollute, a symbol of insatiable and transmogrifying capitalism, the enemy of our natural environment. Cars have the potential to be dangerous, but they rarely are for me.

I have not felt protected for a long time.

Memories can cut and draw blood; the memories attached to my experiences in cars are indelible, painful, vivid, imagined.

Sometimes when the doors lock, it seals my memories.

Shielded from rain with friends.

Feeling lust’s cool thrill in summer heat with the air con on.

Looking out as if from a space shuttle at a foreign world blanketed by snow.

Lip-bitten desire. Daft Punk spilling out the speakers. Getting lost. Laughing.

Long road trips; taking the scenic route to Manchester and back again.

Sudden arousal; sudden sadness. Talking shit in a rented vehicle.

Highways and meadows. Windows down and speeding thru Brixton.

It can be like a home, a nomad’s home, endlessly travelling and unrooted. I feel unrooted 88% of the time anyway. It can feel like the car was meant for me.

Sometimes it feels like cars are meant for memories.»

C55 Cassette, edition of 50 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded between October 2020 & January 2021
in Croydon, South- & Greater London GB
Dubbed to cassette October 2021 in Den Haag NL
All tracks written and produced by SOUTH
Design by Luca van Grinsven

26.07.2021

Overtime at the office. Smile. Co-workers talk behind your back.

Lixer and Splash Soldier Splendid mumble, scream and narrate the 9-5 routine.

Tales of class issues and discrimination are being force-fed through arcade- and cotton candy machines. Kermis.

Their voices glide and sink into oversaturated soundscapes of daily news, empty words, and bland, oily meals.

Violently sweet, sonic patchworks of life in the matrix emerge.

The government watches.

[Circling the Monopoly Board]

A rollercoaster rides through your friendly neighbourhood. All is well.
> Barrel roll onto the flipside of trimmed front yards, picket fences and social niceties. Beware of the dog.

£​$​₿ navigate through toxic environments. Camouflaged with masculinity, blending into the shadows, secretly scanning their allies through the checkout. Surveilled. Before they disappear into the feed we catch a glimpse of their sensitive selves.

C36 Cassette + Print, edition of 50 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded between November 2019
& March 2021 in Utrecht & Limburg NL
Dubbed to cassette July 2021 in Den Haag NL
All tracks written and produced by
Lixer Manski & Splash Soldier Splendid
Monopoly Board by Lunetten Shadow Banking
Cassette design by Luca van Grinsven

10.05.2021

Gliding over glistening landscapes, edges of sharp leaves,
a soft patch of moss, high tree tops.

Green metallic ripples open up into a stream.

Sand torn from the silent grounds beneath.

[upwards, clashing, seamlessly blending]

The earth is bubbling up, smearing across your vision,
bordering on illusions.

Then a crunch, clear image, feeling aroused.

Lena Tsibizova, Piper Spray and Sergey Podluzhny interconnect.
The energy that forms within and gushes out is undeniable.

C20 Cassette + Print, edition of 50 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded in 2019 & 2020 between Vietnam,
Kudrovo RU, Moscow RU & Tbilisi GE
Dubbed to cassette March 2021 in Den Haag NL
All tracks written and produced by AIR Krew
Photography by AIR Krew
Design by Luca van Grinsven

29.03.2021

Faint memories of dances are beating themselves into existence.

An empty floor.

Rough rhythmic textures fall apart, unveiling fragile structures.

SON CARPARK is telling a fragmented story, the voice is singing hauntingly romantic mantras and sweet lullabies. Try to locate its source. I can't.

Words are resonating in a mental room.

[transparent]

Vocalising thoughts about a journey in the middle of this endless night. Isolate them. Let it fade. Walk away.

«SPATIAL ANTIQUITIES traverses a harsh spectrum of noise and attempts to harvest beauty from it, each track has a nostalgic quality which embodies an Antiquity from the mind. Pertinent to one time, but distant the next. When listening please think about walking through a museum and remember all music is history.»

C39 Cassette, edition of 50 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded between March 2019 & May 2020 in Auckland City NZ
Dubbed to cassette March 2021 in Den Haag NL
All tracks written and produced by SON CARPARK
Design by Luca van Grinsven

07.12.2020

After a conversation and exchange of ideas orbiting his album 'Unfinished Portrait Of Youth Today' (2013, The Tapeworm), german sound artist Hanno Leichtmann contributes a beautiful collection of Loop Music to the Off Center catalogue.

Sitting, immersed in a silent film noir played slightly too fast. The movements uncanny. Trying to follow a storyline by lip reading and listening to the tonality of the score.

Here. Rewatching this scene over and over. Again.

Suspenseful progressions throughout. (Parts 1-18)

Often times we're left with a strangely familiar feeling. The warming, fuzzy frequencies constantly bordering on melancholia. Collaged, vivid memories and emotions.

It's dark again.

The lonely detective on a corner with his hands burried. Waiting, watching, observing, following a suspect unnoticed.

The case unravels in his head. Then it's being chased through a dusty mechanical room. Not a soul. Gears and wheels are whirring at a volume, faint shifting, the material slowly disintegrates. Rapid rotations and steady beeping overlayed (hypnotic hum) A distant siren. Try to focus. Try to find a way through the smog, the oily, moist air. Hallucinations.

Hanno Leichtmann is based and working in Berlin, has published works on Entr'acte, Karlrecords, his own label Picture/Disk, and collaborated with Faitiche's Jan Jelinek and Andrew Pekler among a variety of artists.

More info via hannoleichtmann.com

C32 cassette, edition of 50 available via Bandcamp

Recorded between February & March 2020 at Static Music in Berlin DE
Dubbed to cassette October 2020 in Den Haag NL
Design by Luca van Grinsven

26.10.2020

«I’ve always struggled to feel whole.

My dad is an Iranian in America, born and raised in a polarized Tehran. My mom belongs to a conservative family, and grew up in a small, Southern town. Trapped in a cycle of contradictions and self-negations, and also free from the trap of a seamless worldview. There’s tension in the cards I’ve been dealt, and Biaban is one of the ways I’ve been dealing with it this year.

I’ve been doing a lot of negotiating with myself lately. New Silk Harp Strings is a set of memories, orchestrated from samples, loops, beatpacks and pre-revolutionary 45s buried in my basement at home, mixtapes scrawled in handwritings of long lost friends, myths, fables, diaspora letters and parables.»

C29 cassette, edition of 50 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded between December 2019 & August 2020
outside Washington DC and inside St. Paul MN
Dubbed to cassette October 2020 in Den Haag NL
All tracks orchestrated and performed by آرام کاوسی
Photography and Design by Luca van Grinsven

24.08.2020

Bryant Canelo unlocks Loretta Aberdeen’s studio. A long peek inside.

PHONE PHREAKER$ PHREAK BACK is spiked with documents of a time locked up in West Columbia. Love stories in overdrive, broken memories, obsessive thought patterns and fever dreams that keep you up at night. A moist layer.

Canelo’s rhyme abstractions remind of the LAMPGOD releases exclusively available to his own ears, recorded and boxed on a shelf you can’t reach.

The words make sure to be heard, over and oversharing the poetry of mundane daily routines and activities, the obnoxious phone calls. Aggressively sensual songs, extended cuts, indulging.

Loretta Aberdeen is living the healthy 2020 waking life style, the organic soul food.

Machines are being juiced and whipped up during hyper focused latenight jams, scratching on hidden specks of gold. Hazy frequencies are being mangled, oversaturated, a screech, a trap.

Stuck in a synthesized spiral of zapping data transmissions, stabbing, tickling and hammering to stay embedded in your subconscious.

Hacked.

Looking for a mental retreat in the corner of a dancefloor, where your only friend is slipping molly into sweat drenched hands and happy faces. The drug anthem, the never ending trance that keeps you riding the edge between extasy and nausea.

Check it out now. Check it out NOW.

C61 cassette, edition of 50 (sold out) & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded between July 2019 & March 2020 in West Columbia SC
except 'deybow', originally recorded December 2017
Dubbed to cassette August 2020 in Den Haag NL
All tracks written and produced by Bryant Canelo
Artworks by Bryant Canelo
Photography by Matt Voor at Triest Gallery
Design by Luca van Grinsven

30.09.2019

I just reflect. I just reflect. I just reflect. I just reflect.

Phrases and vocal snippets repeat their way through ‚used to be‘ like familiar mantras. Aaliyah, SWV and Whitney Houston sing their melancholic love songs over and over again on ghostly remains of once shiny and lush instrumentals.

Blurred memories of late night phone calls, intimate moments, glances and conversations, are scattered over the pieces on Val Clipp’s second album on Off Center.

While we slowly wade through and pass out at the end, we ask ourselves;

What used to be?

You tell me. You tell me.

C28 cassette, edition of 40 (sold out) & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded April 2019, except 'Rain reflects', originally recorded December 2017
Dubbed to cassette September 2019 in Voorburg NL
All tracks written and produced by Val Clipp
Japanese transcription by Yuki Ito
Design by Luca van Grinsven

24.06.2019

Brick and concrete are towering high above, the sun shines bright through the smog, melting brain cells. The burns are leaving empty spaces, placed silence. Sounds seem like hallucinations. Yet the body is moving by itself, finding rhythms to dance to in the glitches and cracks hammering through the system.

New York based Thaniil Alexandros creates a soundtrack for the rising summer heat, as rbchmbrs. An alias appearing on the Washington label 1432 R, on credits of artists like Sir E.U, Theravada or MIKE.

What sounds like long lost dubplate productions played with skips, dust and warps gathered through years of concealment, turns out to be a selection of recently created pieces leaving room for a number of unexpected turns.

Loud and abrasive drum patterns changing speed, variating throughout eleven tracks. Voices are chiming in, distorted breaks are opening up to a jazz variation, a pleasant melody, a song.

C46 cassette, edition of 40 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded between April 2016 & August 2018
in New York City, Washington DC & Piraeus GR
Dubbed to cassette June 2019 in Voorburg NL
All tracks written and produced by Thaniil Alexandros
Design by Luca van Grinsven

05.04.2019

Rhythms hovering miles under the surface of the sea, bubbling up infrequently, speaking and singing in otherworldly tongues.

While floating down a continuous stream, we’re catching a glimpse of emotions and key moments in James King’s past. An echo between a local ice cream bar in Voorburg and a living room table in Bandar Sri Damansara. The waves go way beyond the fade out.

Two hearts, two different speakers and a jasmine scented candle burning through the night.

C33 cassette, edition of 40 (sold out) & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded and dubbed to cassette March & April 2019 in Voorburg NL
All tracks written and produced by James King
Title Typeface and Design by Luca van Grinsven

14.03.2019

Haunted fragments slowly loop their way forward through a late night sitting by the stereo. Reversed scraps of voices and songs spark up and vanish.
An imaginary room, a made up person shuffles, lives in the silent spaces inbetween. Plumes of smoke keep changing the atmosphere.

Transcendence. A dark curtain is fading, the moon shines a light inside.

Muddy frequencies and imperfections make it difficult to believe that these pieces were recorded at a certain time, in a physical place.

While finding ways to connect from locations in Burundi, a temporary home, GHXST! sends material recorded in Kingston, Canada. «from tha hills of tha moon» is a collection of one takes, sketches, intuitive creations.

C30 cassette, edition of 40 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded in Kingston CAN
Dubbed to cassette March 2019 in Voorburg NL
All tracks written and produced by GHXST!
Design by Luca van Grinsven

14.01.2019

In the DEMOLITION series, local artists and friends of Off Center publish recently produced material, first versions and raw cuts in a small edition of demo cassettes.

Starting off is a collection of bits produced by Den Haag based artist Val Clipp. Contrary to “Word on the Street”, this short and diverse approach on rhythm based music finds it’s way through four tracks influenced by footwork, dub and grime.

C16 cassette, edition of 10 (sold out) & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded and dubbed to cassette January 2019
All tracks written and produced by Val Clipp
Design by Luca van Grinsven

07.09.2018

«Word on the Street» marks the first publication on Off Center in September 2018. This 8-track mini album is a collection of pieces produced by Den Haag based artist Val Clipp.

A soundtrack for car rides through murky places, sleepless nights and short moments stuck in an endless loop. Slow rhythms pierced by sourceless interviews, rap improvisations and haunted chants.

C26 cassette, edition of 30 (sold out),
2022 edition of 10 & digital available via Bandcamp

Recorded and dubbed to cassette August 2018 in Den Haag NL
All tracks written and produced by Val Clipp
Photography and Design by Luca van Grinsven