Since the late 1980s, The Pit’s in Kortrijk and 4AD in Diksmuide have been the indisputable centres of the West Flemish alternative music scene

For live music, the province of West Flanders is deep in the shadow of the domineering capital of its eastern cousin, Ghent. Yet there are some real occidental hotspots – De Kreun in Kortrijk, De Vortn’s Vis in Ypres, Cactus in Bruges.

But the two oddball colossi at the heart of the West Flemish alternative music scene are 4AD in Diksmuide and The Pit’s in Kortrijk. Both opened in 1988 and both fuse the punk DIY ethos and Flemish volunteering culture with financial backup from the governing powers-that-be.

Diksmuide is perhaps best known for the brutal trench warfare that took place around the Yser river during the First World War. It’s a strange place to find a music club named after the British record label that was home to rock bands like The Pixies, Cocteau Twins and Xmal Deutschland.

Patrick Smagghe, a Diksmuide local, started 4AD in a tiny bar on a shopping street in the late 1980s. It later moved to a larger location by the town’s railway station. Its third and current home is an old Belgacom depot, which 4AD moved into in 2004 and which was gifted by the town.

In 2005, the depot was enclosed by an enormous cuboid structure of soundproofed concrete, over a metre thick in places. The cost of that operation, including that of all the new tech gear inside, was well over €900,000. The bulk of it came from the government of Flanders.