KRAAK FEST 2026 HIGHLIGHTS: De Regering Van Treffelijke Zaken

Since there's not much info about you out there (Gonzo article is paywalled!), how and when did DRVTZ come to be?

It started somewhere in 2020. We knew each other since we all lived in Ghent at the time and since our lives crossed ways in many ways. Somewhere amid the social alienation and detachment at the time, the urge to come and play music together came along. We did have some jams before, but not with all four of us together. So eventually we came together in Jeffrey’s living room, where Artuur and Benwa used to live before. A kind of weird house that used to be a medical practice. Anyway, we had some spontaneous jams with stuff that was laying around at Jeffrey’s place, recorded all of them with a crappy handy recorder and had a great time. A few months later when we (re)discovered that we actually did record the whole thing, we released those jams on bandcamp (Demo 19973) and had them released on tape by ZoeZoe Records. Since then, we come together a few times a year to jam and try (yes, trying!) to record everything too. Following the tape release, we also got asked to play live. Although this never was our intention, we agreed to it at the time and apparently we are still doing it.

There's an obvious link to the influences that you share and have cited before -  Träd, Gras Och Stenar, International Harvester, Sylvester Anfang II. But are there any unlikely influences, personal or collective, musical or otherwise?

Artuur: Can, Swans and France (the band) are common musical influences, as well as de portables. For me, other influences are Béla Tarr, clouds, meditation and the traditional folk I grew up with. Jaki Liebezeit, Om and a lot of non-Western music are influential to my drumming too. 

Jeffrey: I play the bass and guitar on different recordings and always try to channel a Sterling Morrison or Ron Asheton on the guitar and a Sylvester Anfang II bass player on the bass. Apart from that I listen to lots of punk, metal, hip hop and at any time of the day there's always some snippet of music playing in my head. Now it's the horn section in Stevie Wonder’s Superstition!

You make it very clear that all your gatherings are fully improvised, yet your performances have a tightness and harmoniousness to them that feels planned out (if only cosmically). Do you have any guidelines or ideas that you kick off your jams with?

Yeah, our gatherings and all of the recordings so far are fully improvised, no guidelines, no ideas. Apart from the spontaneous “hey, what about this?”, followed by “alright, let’s…” (already drowned in sound). The few times we recorded stuff, we obviously could pick out the most interesting recordings. Our first few live performances were 100% improvised as well and although they went great, we started working with some ideas for the past few shows. When we see each other now, we basically kick off a jam with some melodic, harmonic or rhythmic idea. But in the end, those ideas usually are nothing more than a landmark along the way. We don’t meet up that often, 5 times a year is a good guess. We think spontaneity, happy accidents and the quest for trance are what mostly defines our sound. 

We're aware of Benwa and Jeffrey's solo projects, do the other members have them as well? Or perhaps in different configurations with each other?

No solo projects coming from the other members. Or not yet… Apart from his solo project Ishtembashtok and this band, Jeffrey plays in 5 other bands (Bokkerijders, Shewolff, Dork Funeral, Grace Death, Wave of Fear). Alexander plays in two other bands (Las Almorannas and Kobi One & The Full Sacks) and Artuur used to play drums in an instrumental postmetal band (All We Expected) and jams a lot. And Benwa and Jeffrey have played together years ago with Gloeilamp, a noise project that briefly surfaced. 

For your release Melle-Aan-Zee, were the recordings planned as a release or was that decided in retrospect? How do you all feel about the recording/releasing process? And is there any more of it in the future?

No, they weren’t really planned as a release. Although this time we did want to record ‘more properly’ to try out some gear we acquired. In the summer of 2021, we gathered in Alexander’s crazy warm and ridiculously small attic room for a few days. We wanted to have some good time jamming but we also wanted to try out a multitrack recording this time. A lot went wrong while jamming: mics fell down, tracks weren’t recorded, things got heavily clipped, we forgot to record, … you name it. We weren’t exactly sober either. We also had a back-up though: the crappy handy recorder we used for our first tape! So there it was: one big pile of chaos, missing tracks and recordings full of artefacts and our L/R recording from the handy recorder. We somehow made something out of it, had it laying around for a few months again until Artuur released these recordings titled ‘Melle-Aan-Zee’ as a cassette tape through his own label Swarm In Peace. Shortly after the release, Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube reached out to release these same recordings on vinyl. To put it mildly, we didn’t see that coming! But honestly, this way of things working out the way they have has been super cool and inspiring. The thing about our sessions is that we have to let them age a bit. When we listen back shortly after recording, usually we don’t really get it but we might end up falling in love with it after listening months or years later. We usually also don’t remember who is playing bass or guitar, because Alexander and Jeffrey switch around all the time. It shows how much it brings us in a trance, the jams are always a snapshot of what we’re manifesting at that moment. Let’s see if there will be more in the future, that would be nice. We can make some noise for sure, but once the strings stop ringing and the sticks lay down, we’re having a pretty rough time to compromise, haha! 

De Regering Van Treffelijke Zaken are on Bandcamp chiefly$

DRVTZ's psychedelic divagations will shake things up at KRAAK Festival 2026 next Saturday March 14 at Het Bos. Tickets this way!