Mark Van Hoen

by Sean CooperLocusts Mark Van Hoen occupies the shadier, more melancholic side of contemporary ambient, assembling records of unmistakable beauty out of shards of dark, somewhat foreboding textures and arrangements. A London native active in the film and commercial music business before concentrating full-time on recording for release, Van Hoen has produced a string of highly thought-of releases for the R&S subsidiary Apollo in a relatively short period of time. Hes quoted Steve Reich, David Sylvian, Kraftwerk, and Brian Eno as early influences, but more recently has been attempting to pursue paths of creative conception opened up by John Coltrane and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Although earlier releases focused on sprawling, mostly beatless experimental soundscapes, his more recent work has incorporated elements of breakbeat styles such as trip-hop and jungle — mostly in terms of production techniques, as opposed to aesthetic qualities, and with decidedly Locust flair. Truth Is Born of Arguments was the first release of this sort, and included heavy, distorted percussion and complex, looping polyrhythms similar to (although much more sluggish than) those found in drumnbass.Not always the ambient misanthrope, Van Hoen splits his creative activity between Locust and a number of ongoing collaborative ventures, among them Autocreation (techno) and Involution (post-techno experimental electronic), the latter with Seefeel frontman Daren Seymour. Van Hoens also completed a number of remixes for Seefeel and As One, among others, and has recently incorporated elements of multimedia and performance art into his live appearances. Van Hoen also released the occasional recording under his given name, including 1996s Last Flowers from the Darkness and 1999s Playing with Time.