25 years after its initial release this could have been a nice re-release with lots of additional information about the way this album came to birth. The actual result has unfortunately become the opposite of it and for a very sad reason. The two persons who run the www.ensemblepittoresque.net site Ton Willekes and Richard Neumöller (so it isn’t an official E.P. site at all, it’s just a Neumöller/Willekes site) wanted a bigger slice of the credit pie and to be able to do so, they brought out this album behind my back. They did it before but in a slightly different way. When Minimal Wave showed interest in releasing what was known internally as demo 1, Ton Willekes lied to their explicit question if he represented the whole band and said yes. That brought Minimal Wave in an embarrassing situation. When I got connected to the internet November last year, I found out about the existence of the “The Art of Being” album three months after it was released. In recent correspondence with Mr. Willekes about this, he produced a whole series of lies and tried to pass his responsibility on various subjects concerning this album onto other persons.
If you wonder what this all has got to do with you as a (potential) buyer, then read this.
- As is the case on their E.P. net site and "The Art of Being” album, again all the lyrics I wrote/co-wrote contain several faults. Words or parts of the lyrics that they couldn’t understand were filled in with wild guesses or not at all. Although I warned both of them more then once about this fact, they still keep using these incorrect lyrics. “I doubt if the lyrics contain a lot of faults, what is a lot. Is it deliberately done? Does it make much difference?” comes from the same Mr. Willekes who said in the Minimal Wave interview: “I never wrote any lyrics. I’m no lyrics fan”. No wonder that in the song the art of being for instance “I need a damp-proof gloom” is mutilated into “I needed them proof gloom”.
- Not only were a handful of credits taken away from me to be divided between the both of them, on parts were I was correctly credited they made again a mess of it, for instance: the brand and type synthesizer behind my name is for 80% incorrect. In that respect Mr Willekes wrote in one of his emails to me “OB4, OB8, Polysix, Jupiter4, 6 or 8 what does it matter?”
- So why didn’t Willekes/Neumöller simply call me, inform me about their plans of a reissue and check their information with me and/or ask to provide them with the correct information. The answer is just as simple as it is absurd. Mr. Willekes wanted to be more than the engineer that he in reality was and now out of the blue puts his name as a co-writer on three songs. He knows that in my presence he would never have gotten away with that, so that’s why I was (again, just as on their e.p.net site and “The Art of Being” album) left out and you have to do with the limited and largely incorrect info that he provides you with.
What more strange things have passed?.
- The title of “The Art of Being” album was Ton Willekes idea. A title of a song that was not in any way part of that album itself but part of a different album. Can this be seen as a lack of creativity? Realize that the names Ensemble Pittoresque, Clogsontronics, For this is past and almost all song titles until Frequenz (and that title as well) came from my hand and that the cover art was done by myself under my real name Peter van Wijland Tieman (Paulus Wieland is my pseudonym). “Every Past has its History” would have been a much more appropriate title for that album since these recordings preceded the “For this is past” album. Mr. Willekes, for some idiotic reason, starts for this re-release to cut and paste with the original album cover, with the result that only the lithography I made for that album remains and is glued on a carpet glue colored cover which breaths nothing of the original atmosphere. The rear cover photograph with the caption “the art of being” is removed completely. What a mess!
- The material of which the cover is made of is completely ill chosen. The vinyl record on the open side of the inner sleeve made a 6,5cm cut in the outer sleeve when I received it.
- You get two stickers with “Hosumuku Collectief” on it. These stickers have nothing to do whatsoever with Ensemble Pittoresque. I invented the name, that’s all (so I did not design these stickers and “his never established art collective” is incredible nonsense and maybe one of Mr. Willekes “jokes”). I invented for instance the name “EyePerformances” too and that has as well nothing to do with Ensemble Pittoresque.
- On the bottom of one of the sides of the inner sleeve you will see my real name with an address and telephone number behind it. Please do not call that number or write or send anything to that address since I’m not living there for almost 25 years. International decency describes to tape of an address in such cases. Mr Willekes obviously does not care about this, I wrote him about this matter since the same picture is on the Willekes/Neumöller www.ensemblepittoresque.net site, but until now he didn’t undertake any action to tape it off.
Although it’s not very pleasant to see you’re lyric legacy treated this way, it is in the first place that I think if given any, the info you receive should be correct and true. Since the start of the www.ensemblepittoresque.net site you largely received neither one of them. Until now I did not seek publicity although Minimal Wave gave me the opportunity to do so after it became clear that Ton Willekes had been misleading them. I refrained to do so for the sake of Mr. Willekes/Neumöller's children and in the hope that it would have ended with that “Art of being” album, but now I know that I have been naive. I have tried everything that has been lying legally in my power to stop the release of this album in this form, except going to court, but I failed. On a certain moment Mr Willekes even started harassing me and my wife by telephone and eventually threatened me by telephone and email. With that I think a line is crossed and that makes me furious. I have informed Clogsontronics of this all but still, after a couple of weeks, didn’t receive any apology. There has been a lot of controversy within Ensemble Pittoresque and in the coming months I will tell you a whole different side of the story than you can read on their site. I will supply you with correct versions of my lyrics and all kinds of other (background) information that might be interesting for you, but since I’m limited in the time to do so, it will be bit by bit and unfortunately not all at once, but I promise to do my best. Although in number relatively small, judging by the prices paid for second hand albums, there must be (much to my surprise) very dedicated fans and I think you deserve more than been given so far.
It could very well be that in defense Ton Willekes will try to hide behind my younger and small-time criminal brother Ronald who, knowing I had no internet connection at the time, approached Minimal Wave, initially as being Paulus Wieland and then falsely as being my representative, when he found out about the upcoming release of “The Art of being” album (in that way he claimed the three albums Minimal Wave reserved for me, only to send me one after he was charged for them when I informed Minimal Wave about the matter in November last year, so that 3 1/2 months after its release I received a copy of the album). If someone claims to be representing a person he would have to proof it somehow, this proof doesn’t exist, was never asked for and was never even checked by the means of a simple phone call with me. It came just too convenient for Mr Willekes to do so.
This re-release does not have my approval and therefore I do not consider it as being an official one.
I'm not related, in any way, to the current Clogsontronics label.
The quality, especially of the cd, of the re-release is fine and you can buy it for that if you wish, but remember that it’s wrapped up in something that only can be called an utter disgrace!
