Frank is a series of 5 CDr releases with documentation of tracks recorded by Kasper van Hoek during his studies at the Frank Mohr Institute.
The best tracks of the series were later compiled for the De Valse Wolfskwint En Andere Fabeldieren CD.

Tracklist:
1: Live At Frank Mohr Institute 2: Live At Zomeravonden

Reviews:

Vital Weekly by Frans de Waard

Things have been quiet from Kasper van Hoek for a while, both his own music and his Heilskabaal Records label. It turns out he is now doing his masters degree at the Frank Mohr Institute for interactive media and environments in Groningen, The Netherlands. On five separate CDR we will know what he's doing there.
'Frank 1' has four pieces, and three of them uses also source material from one Micheal Dotolo and two with Hideki Kanno. One piece is a pure solo piece. The first two pieces are based on live recordings, the other two on field recordings. I think these are the more interesting ones of the two. The opening piece (live) starts out nice, but then stays a bit too much in the field of improvisation, without too much tension. The second does have that tension, mainly a noisy character. The pieces based on field recordings have some extensive manipulation on the computer and can meet with the best he did in this field, which is his 'Den Haag/Groningen/Froombosch' (see Vital Weekly 615) release.
On 'Frank 2' we find two solo live recordings, both of them made with a self-built instrument: a suitcase with guitar strings, connected with screw terminals on one side and on the other side some potentiometers and switches, which control a sampler in Max/msp. The Groningen variation opens up and is shorter than the Maastricht version. Both of these pieces are of course improvised. In the first piece Van Hoek keeps things well under control and offers a strong interplay with the sounds at hand. In Maastricht (some twenty-five minutes) things went a bit out of hand and the piece glides off in a pool of rough sound treatments and a somewhat muddy sound.
When Van Hoek has released all five 'Frank' releases, there will be a best off release. From these two, I'd say three and four of the first release, and the first one from the second (that almost sounds like poetry). For the time being available in an edition of 20 copies with silkscreened covers.