Just when you thought you’d heard it all, The Chi Factory rewrites the rules of nostalgia, plunging you into places and emotions you never knew existed. Emerging from the rock-n-roll underground in the '80s and now revered for their ethereal ambient catalogue on Astral Industries, they remain an unparalleled force to be reckoned with. We met initiator Hanyo Van Oosterom in his home studio in Rotterdam, diving deep into his punk roots, his life in a cave, and what could be The Chi Factory’s final transmission.
'Part Four' of ‘AI-12: The Mantra Recordings’ is playing in the background during the car ride. In an instant, a cloak of internal peace is laid upon the motion of that moment, like being sucked into a vacuum of safety and comfort: a feeling of homecoming. It’s a rainy Friday at noon; a typical Dutch ‘summer day’. The time has come to travel to Rotterdam and meet Hanyo Van Oosterom, founder of the ambient formation The Chi Factory. This musical legend started in the 80s and is today mostly known through their unrivalled presence on leading ambient label Astral Industries.
It’s no wonder this feeling of immense nostalgia is evoked by The Chi Factory’s music. Hanyo has a rich musical career that covers more than 40 years. From being a successful drummer and pianist touring hundreds of times back in the 70s, to living in a cave for months on a Greek island, to building a friendship and musical path with Detroit-based dub-techno pioneer DeepChord, he’s done it all. While trying to make sense of the multitude of creative outlets and timelines of his life story in an attempt to structure the interview, the ongoing traffic jam came to a total halt. For how long has the car been standing still? The sense of time was gone. Most probably because ‘Part Two’ of the ‘AI-07: Kallikatsou Recordings’ soothed the atmosphere in the car.
Arriving at Hanyo’s house you are met by a tall building, typical of Rotterdam’s 17th-century Baroque-influenced architecture. Knowing about the vast discography that has been produced in this place over the past few decades, the static structure with its grey-clouded backdrop makes an impact. The atmosphere of Chi’s ambient psychedelica disappears for a few seconds, to continue shortly after as Hanyo opens the door with a warm welcoming energy: ‘Hi both, come in, it’s on the second floor!’
The Chi Studio
Entering the studio floor feels like walking into a museum. We witness an old Tascam 234 Syncaset recorder, books on The Mysticism of Sound by Sufi preacher Inayat Kahn, a poster from the first Chi performance in Paradiso Amsterdam back in the 80s, and hand-made bamboo flutes by his best friend and Chi Factory band member who had recently passed away, Jacobos Derwort, or ‘Koos’. It’s a name that is mentioned multiple times with deep love and respect throughout the rest of the day. Sitting down together in the front-side room looking over a park with a canal, the conversation takes off spontaneously, like catching up with a friend. The interview structure? Gone. But, this form of ‘spontaneity’, ‘flow’, and ‘improvisation’ were just a harbinger of the valuable life lessons we were about to learn from Hanyo that day. ‘Are you recording?’ he asks. And we start.
From rock to ambient
It’s the late 70s. The era where genres such as disco, funk, soul, R&B, smooth jazz, and jazz fusion were shaped. Hanyo van Oosterom, at that time entering his 20s, is touring Europe with the successful funk band The Frog, being on stage by the likes of pop-icons Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, and jazz-legend Archie Shepp. From shady small pubs to the biggest stages, he lived the wild rock-n-roll lifestyle that zeitgeist is known for. Yet, a shift occurred, steering him towards a genre that few had explored at the time: ambient. A shift that would define his legacy. The sheer contrast between these musical paths generated loads of questions. ‘Do we really have to go that far back?’ Hanyo asked with a smile, reflecting his grounded spirit in the here and now.
As a young kid, he secretly watched a famous German pianist play from behind the curtains at his mother’s job at the Goethe institute. He played a few notes from the show and got free lessons offered by the pianist. After a handful of lessons, the fun of playing was gone and he stopped. He started playing drums. Pans, pots; whatever he could find was used to build his first set-up. Later, guitar and bass would follow. ‘And still, I play nothing by the book’, he adds. ‘Everywhere I come I feel and hear rhythms which I just start to play out. For instance, the rhythm of that Chi Factory track you loved was recorded while drumming on a wooden table at Signal Festival. This recording was later processed in this studio.’
He gestures to the full-fledged soundproof studio in the middle of the living room. Here, dozens of legendary artists such as Kain The Poet (founder of The Last Poets) have been recording over the course of the years. ‘I met Kain at an event I organised in Rotterdam and walked up to him. “Let’s record something!”, I said.’ And so it happened. Amazed by the rich history of that space, we get back into the conversation. How did this transition from the rock-n-roll lifestyle to ambient happen in an age where ambient was only just starting as a genre, carried by artists like Brian Eno, Robert Fripp, and Jon Hassell? Legendary names The Chi Factory’s work would later be compared with.
'From the silence, there came music'
The silent cave retreat
‘At some point in time, I felt lost.’ Hanyo explains. He did not feel synchronised anymore with the path he was pursuing. Touring, music, and even his life in general didn’t feel right anymore. ‘In 1983, I decided to take some time off and travelled to Greece, where I found the island of Patmos. Everything I craved was a peaceful place, somewhere silent. I met a woman who told me about a cave on the island, the Kallikatsou. It was a very remote place. You had to climb a challenging cliff at sea to get there. “But, there should be some blankets in there”, she told me.’ Being part of the Greek history of myths and gods, the Kallikatsou has been a spiritual refuge for orthodox hermits since 1100 BC.
The first time visiting the cave, he stayed there for weeks, soaking up the silence he longed for. Keep in mind, it’s the start of the 80s. No phone. No digital connection with the rest of the world. Pure solitude and silence. ‘It was rough. Very rough. I had the worst nightmares and darkest visions you can imagine. But I somehow felt I had to stay.’ he reflects. ‘But, at some point, total peace came. It was silent. Like truly silent! Also in my mind. And from the silence, there came music. I started to hear music in the night. First the wind, the water, and the nightbirds. This slowly became scapes, drones, music. This was the beginning of Chi’, Hanyo states firmly.
The rollercoaster of emotions Hanyo has been through could be described as a silent retreat. Hanyo adds: ‘It almost resembled the ‘coming-of-age’ ritual of the Native-American Hopi tribes, where men enter adulthood.’ Knowing ‘Hopi’ is referenced throughout multiple The Chi Factory productions. One of the many mystical components of The Chi Factory started to make sense. The cave became a source.
Bringing ambient to Europe: Chi
Back in Rotterdam, accompanied by these high-spirited visions of music in his mind, Hanyo decided to record it. ‘I made a beat with a piece of iron and a window, adding space echos and running it through a vocoder. On the TV in the background, a Hopi Elder was speaking. I recorded the voice with a mic. This is how the first ever Chi track ‘Hopi’ came to life. Hanyo met up with his best friend and former band member Jacobus Derwort, also known as Koos. After playing Hopi for him, they decided to visit the Kallikatsou together and record more songs with handmade flutes and an old walkman.
Back in the studio, they invited multi-instrumentalists Willem Carmer and Michel Banabila. Together they released ‘The Original Recordings’, released in 1986 under the name of ‘Chi’, eventually bringing the genre to the European stage for the first time at the iconic pop temple Paradiso Amsterdam. Hanyo points at a vintage-looking poster on the wall and explains: ‘We were playing ambient in Paradiso for a bunch of punks and freaks while being broadcasted on national radio on a contemporary music channel. For some people, the music didn’t make sense at all, but a lot of others loved it.’ His energetic way of storytelling captures the pioneering essence of that moment. But, after three years, the Chi formation stopped. ‘I actually do not know why, reflecting on it now.’
Revisiting the Kalikatsou cave many times, he continued different musical endeavours, like his Flying Dutchman project, which was on the verge of trip-hop and electronica, or his ‘Numoonlab improvisation sessions’, where he performed with trumpeter and ambient pioneer Jon Hassell and Tony Allen (Fela Kuti). And not to forget: he also became a yoga teacher in the 90s before it became the Westernised and commercialised trend it is today.
In the meantime, a small batch of obscure tapes of ‘The Original Recording’ from Chi did its rounds in record stores around the world but remained unheard amongst the bigger audience—until a future friend from overseas came into play.
Bringing ambient to Europe: Chi
Back in Rotterdam, accompanied by these high-spirited visions of music in his mind, Hanyo decided to record it. ‘I made a beat with a piece of iron and a window, adding space echos and running it through a vocoder. On the TV in the background, a Hopi Elder was speaking. I recorded the voice with a mic. This is how the first ever Chi track ‘Hopi’ came to life. Hanyo met up with his best friend and former band member Jacobus Derwort, also known as Koos. After playing Hopi for him, they decided to visit the Kallikatsou together and record more songs with handmade flutes and an old walkman.
Back in the studio, they invited multi-instrumentalists Willem Carmer and Michel Banabila. Together they released ‘The Original Recordings’, released in 1986 under the name of ‘Chi’, eventually bringing the genre to the European stage for the first time at the iconic pop temple Paradiso Amsterdam. Hanyo points at a vintage-looking poster on the wall and explains: ‘We were playing ambient in Paradiso for a bunch of punks and freaks while being broadcasted on national radio on a contemporary music channel. For some people, the music didn’t make sense at all, but a lot of others loved it.’ His energetic way of storytelling captures the pioneering essence of that moment. But, after three years, the Chi formation stopped. ‘I actually do not know why, reflecting on it now.’
Revisiting the Kalikatsou cave many times, he continued different musical endeavours, like his Flying Dutchman project, which was on the verge of trip-hop and electronica, or his ‘Numoonlab improvisation sessions’, where he performed with trumpeter and ambient pioneer Jon Hassell and Tony Allen (Fela Kuti). And not to forget: he also became a yoga teacher in the 90s before it became the Westernised and commercialised trend it is today.
In the meantime, a small batch of obscure tapes of ‘The Original Recording’ from Chi did its rounds in record stores around the world but remained unheard amongst the bigger audience—until a future friend from overseas came into play.
The birth of a legacy: The Chi Factory
On a certain day in the mid-'90s, dub-techno pioneer Rod Modell, mostly known as DeepChord, walks into a record store in Portland, Oregon, where he finds the Chi tape. Captivated by the esoteric tracks on the tape, he sends it to the London-based label Astral Industries. Later, label founder Ario contacted Hanyo and re-released ‘AI-03: The Original Recordings’ in 2016. From this moment on, Hanyo and Koos moved on together as ‘The Chi Factory’.
In close collaboration with Ario, The Chi Factory left a signature on the label that found its way into electronic music enthusiast catalogues around the world. Most releases consisted of about four tracks, each 30-minute length, encompassing different ambient passages that are deeply esoteric and transcendental. With works so deeply evocative and with barely any information about the origin to be found online, multiple journalists tried to put their thoughts on The Chi Factory into words: ‘Having listened to this LP on loop for a little while there is really no conclusion to be reached other than that it’s fantastic. Reminiscent of the genius of Eno’, a review of the AI-05: Bamboo Recordings states, the second release in the series. Piccadilly Records notes: ‘If you’ve ever wondered what it'd be like to visit the region in Terrence McKenna’s ‘True Hallucinations’ novel, this could well take you halfway there.’
Artists, listeners, critics—no one remains untouched by The Chi Factory. Successful release after successful release, accompanied by the visual art of Theo Ellsworth, their work still echoes throughout the world today. The albums became a true collector's item that sold out in an instant. It’s a collection that can be described as timeless, breathtaking, and indeed fundamental to how we perceive the genre today. However, words don’t do justice to the experience of The Chi Factory’s music.
There is no fixed interpretation of the music. After revisiting each record, during both day and night, with or without sleep, sober or in an altered state of mind, you will find new meaning in the compositions. It teaches you about emotions you have inside or someone close to you. It makes you nostalgic about experiences you did not know you had. It fuses generational influences and different cultural backgrounds. It’s a meditative refuge from everyday life. Meditation through music. The yoga background, the love for nature, and the love for animals that Hanyo expresses in anecdotes throughout the conversation, such as riding wild horses since he was a child. It all adds up. The music of The Chi Factory encapsulates an ethereal, almost Taoist-like aura.
‘I have no children. What I’ll leave is my music and I’d love to pass this on’
The power of play and being present
Hanyo drags the conversation with both feet on the ground for a moment: ‘Don’t make this piece too much up in the air, let’s keep it grounded. Let’s stick to the music.’ And it’s precisely this ethos, this typical no-nonsense Rotterdam attitude that enables Hanyo to create a form of art that resonates across layers of societies and generations. ‘Recht door zee’, as the Dutch say, which means ‘frank’ and ‘straightforward’. ‘I just turned 65, sometimes I forget about that when planning my gigs’, he adds jokingly when discussing future plans, which emphasises the accumulation of life experience that went into The Chi Factory’s music.
As the conversation progresses, the power of play becomes clear. Sometimes even on a provoking level, Hanyo approaches music with a sense of looseness. ‘One time I played at Berlin Atonal. Everyone in the audience was looking dead serious. I picked up the microphone and started to make some jokes. When I sat down behind the piano, the stool was making a squeaking noise. This sound ended up becoming part of my live show as I delayed it out through my microphone. Part of the audience left, the other part became hypnotised and some came up to me after the show.’
He continues: ‘During a performance together with Rod at Sonar Barcelona, I heard that a lady who did the artist service was also a singer. When we started to play, I picked up the microphone and asked her to join us on stage. Somewhat stunned by the act she finally came up on stage, and sang along for a few minutes. It was a magical moment and the crowd loved it. So did we.’ But this improvisation he also inflicts on himself: At Mostra Barcelona, he played a fully improvised live tribute to one of his greatest inspirations, Ryuichi Sakamoto, with pre-recorded samples from the influential Japanese composer who had recently passed away back then.
It seems the out-of-the-blue performance as a rookie with Archie Shepp made a lasting impact on Hanyo’s hang towards improvisation: ‘Shepp had no band, so I was invited to play with him in a small club in Rotterdam. With no time to prepare anything, we just got in our set up and Shepp walked in. He looked at my set-up: 4 cassette decks with field recordings, some space echos and a bass guitar. He sat down, grabbed a pipe, and filled it up with a huge bag of weed, about the amount that I could smoke in a few days back then. He asks the bartender for two whiskeys, smokes the pipe in three puffs, downs the whiskey and starts playing. “Come on boy, let’s play!” he told me. And we soundchecked until the people came in and kept playing until they left all improvised’, he recalls. ’After this show, Shepp said: “Keep doing what you just did boy and everything will work out fine.” So I did’. Hanyo concludes with a smile.
This jazzy loose-ended approach to a performance humanises the artist on stage again, something we quite often miss in the electronic music industry of today. It erases the border between the stage and the tribune or dancefloor. It invites us to engage in a live act and create together, to be present. Somehow, Hanyo maintains this state of being present throughout his whole life. He continues his pots-and-pans-approach and still makes beats out of a random curation of objects. Hanyo engages with the most simple things in a meaningful way; a sign of being truly present as a creative maker.
Preserving the cult legend: Son of Chi
As the final Chi Factory release AI-18: Travel in Peace states in its description: J.Derwort (15/07/1952 - 11/02/2019) left all his flutes, old guitars, strange percussion and some weird found objects at the Chi Factory studio. Hanyo’s best friend and one half of The Chi Factory, Koos, passed away. After his passing, Hanyo went back to the island of Patmos on his own to re-experience all the special moments he had with Chi. He recorded the basics for the ‘Travel In Peace’ release, playing all the handmade flutes that Koos left behind. It was a lonely and emotional journey. But along the way, a magical connection with Koos’ spirit occurred, and the last Chi Factory album was born, working with old samples from Koos.
Hanyo shows us the wooden flutes in his studio: ‘Koos was able to reproduce any bird sound. He could speak with the birds. They would respond.’ He points at a giant wooden stick at the other side of the room: ‘We took this with us on our way back and put it in his hospital room in Spain where he spent his last weeks.’ As Koos’ self-made instruments became mementos in the Chi studio, it became clear that his passing did not mean the end of the Chi cult legend; it was the start of a transformation. Chi Factory moved on as Son of Chi.
‘As you now know, acoustic instruments have always been my base. Drums, bass, guitars, piano, wind instruments and field recordings. It feels like with Son of Chi I am slowly bringing these fundamentals back into the productions. Plus, I will include more vocals as these offer the most direct expression of the heart and soul.’ Hanyo rises and shows ‘The Mysticism of Sound’ novel by Sufi preacher Inayat Kahn. ‘Read this, and you’ll understand it.’Remaining ambient at its core, it becomes apparent that Hanyo found a way to once again resurrect an old dimension of musical nostalgia, releasing captivating records in collaboration with artists such as Radboud Mens and Clara Brea. With the similar lengthy structure on both A and B sides, the story continues, releasing instrumental-led pieces that are up there with Jon Hassell, like ‘Part One’ of AI-32: The Fifth World Recordings.
A new chapter: The Chi Factory Recordings
He puts on a new Son of Chi album with Fulani vocalist Omar Ka, which will soon be released under the name ‘We Carry Eden’. The studio living room fills up with poet Robert Lax in the intro of the music and we zoom out together. Hanyo: ‘Astral Industries decided not to release my new Son of Chi projects. I felt sad about this for almost two years, but it was time to move on. I highly respect everything Ario of Astral Industries has done for me. I would have loved to work together for at least another seven years, but we will always be connected somehow. It’s time for the new chapter’.
Like the Hopi vocals on Part Two of ‘Travel in Peace’ repeat: ‘We must keep that going, we must continue practising it.’ A track that you will hear back on the first release of his new label ‘Chi Factory Recordings’, a limited edition CD compilation of seven years of recordings for Astral Industries, including unreleased tracks from the Chi archives.
The power of flow and mentorship: Chi Residency
How does he manage to create such an extensive output of music? ‘I’ve always been a go-with-the-flow type of person. I just move a bit along with everything. No thinking, just doing. On the stage, and in life. But in the end, it’s also a matter of hard work, discipline, and practising the essential rituals every day.’ Although Hanyo sees himself as just another human being, his natural-born mentorship through music becomes apparent when he speaks about his future plans to start an artist-in-residence in his home studio.
Artists and makers will be invited to stay for some weeks for private workshops and join him in the studio. ‘I have no children. What I’ll leave is my music and I’d love to pass this on.’For any music enthusiast out there, it will feel like a collective duty to pass on the story of Chi, let alone the possibility of becoming an artist-in-residence at his studio. As hours passed and the weekend kicked in, we were kindly invited to a spontaneous drink at Hanyo’s pub around the corner. Yet again, flow is power.
The limited ‘Seven Years of The Chi Factory’ compilation can be pre-ordered now via Bandcamp. Follow Hanyo's journey towards the Chi Residency programme here.
