Brussels composer and organist Sander De Keere debuts on Phantom Limb with evocative, elegant new works for solo church organ The Manual Stop, mosaicking patterns of minimalism, IDM, electronic, and sacred music with utmost symbiosis and reverence for the instrument.

Recorded entirely on a centuries-old Contius baroque organ at the historic St. Catharina Church in the town of Wondelgem (Ghent, Belgium), The Manual Stop is described by Sander De Keere as “an homage to the organ’s ancient craftsmanship and sonic experiment in itself.” While remaining in keen veneration to the instrument, its heritage, and its spiritual gravitas, De Keere’s works employ the church organ as the centrepiece of a broad compositional superstructure coloured by the influence of many contrasting musics.

De Keere references mid-century minimalism, early sacred music, classical avant-garde, and experimental electronic music in his search for “landscapes that challenge expectations of what a pipe organ can be.” The combination - singular even in a well occupied space - yields a record that inverts the familiar, the church organ here playing the role of antique synthesiser. “As I play the organ, its 1,765 pipes click, swell and pulse like analog circuitry from a time before electricity,” De Keere writes.

The album is the product of weeks of night-time sessions in the church, where De Keere was given the freedom to play deep into the night. “You feel the music through your whole body,” he reveals. “It’s incredibly physical. Each register holds a sonic character, and combining them becomes a kind of alchemy.”

Sander De Keere is a Belgian musicologist and composer originally from Ghent and now based in Brussels. In addition to composing, De Keere has for over a decade been a radio and podcast host with the classical music station Klara for Flemish broadcaster VRT. He also lectures on classical music at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels and is a fixture as Q&A and podcast host for the Brussels Philharmonic and the Flemish Radio Choir. He composed the soundtrack for the 2024 NTR award-winning nonfiction podcast Van Voor het Water and became the first composer in residence at the Brussels contemporary art foundation Fondation CAB. His music has also featured in theatre productions at the Ostend Arts and Theatre Festival, and in the national tv campaign De Warmste Week. In 2019, he performed original compositions for analog synthesizers at S.M.A.K. (City Museum for Contemporary Art) in Ghent during the Ghent Music Festival’s Night of the Imagination. And, in 2024, De Keere was commissioned to compose a new choral work for the 40th anniversary of De Tweede Adem, a Belgian choir dedicated to contemporary classical music.