Ghent-based wanderer Benoit Monsieurs has been exploring the many routes paved by the primitive folk guitarists of legend and is now carving out his own path as Venediktos Tempelboom. After last year’s transcendentally pastoral Het Ruist EP on KRUT comes a first outing on KRAAK, Het Vuil Volkske, where his 12-string guitar ruminations find another mystical avenue in tape form.

These seven tracks straddle the Eastern and Western codes that so infused the hazy Americana pioneered by the John Faheys and the Robbie Bashos of this earth, with the always-haunting Flemish landscape unmistakably lining the contours. Moments of sparse delicateness inadvertently melt into ornate meditations and swerve seamlessly between the pensive and the baroque. With each play, the listener becomes a fellow pilgrim in the quest for presence in what lies beyond. Metaphysical exercises by the tightrope walkers of our imagined belforts ~ damn this stuff goes straight into your bloodline.