Lukas De Clerck is a composer, musician, and artist based in Brussels whose work wanders in the profound and the ancient. He specialises in the aulos: a long-extinct double-reeded Greco-Roman instrument. After spending several years delving into reed-making and playing replicas of ancient auloi, De Clerck has attempted to strip the instrument from its enigmatic past in new, self-taught, and experimental ways. On new album The Telescopic Aulos of Atlas (2024), released on Stephen O'Malley’s label Ideologic Organ, De Clerck reinvents the aulos again as the eponymous telescopic aulos, which stands upright like a sculpture. Transformed anew for modern times, De Clerck’s new interpretation of the aulos unfolds a rich whirring tapestry of sound. “The pipes are a context, a channel for the sound,” he says. “They create a narrative.” The stories they weave are primordial and ceremonial, enlivened by guttural rumblings and volcanic cacophony. Although there is a folk tenor to his music, it too is drenched in otherworldly tones that peer beyond the living human world and convoke visions of alien landscapes beyond simple comprehension. In De Clerk’s fossilised hums, new worlds unfurl.

Lukas De Clerck is an artist of the SHAPE+ platform for innovative music and interdisciplinary art, co-funded by the European Union and Pro Helvetia.

SHAPE+ is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

The creation of the Telescopic Aulos is made possible by the support of Flanders, state of the arts and co-producers STUK, Sonic Acts en de Bijloke.