Niew Hip Stilen is one of my favorite Dutch bands. They came from Rotterdam and played an amazing style of electronic synth wave jazz with some hints towards the urban music culture of early eighties New York City (remember New Order going there which led to the Blue Monday period). Nevertheless their sound is also very Dutch and akin to the other great electro jazz group from Rotterdam called Kiem.
Niew Hip Stilen consisted of Maarten van Gent – bass, drums, guitar, percussie & vocals; Jan Willem van Mook – bass, sax, keyboards, percussion & computer; Rutger van Otterloo – sax, drums & percussion. They had one self-released single in 1981, which came out on the label of the Quarantaineweg, the legendary artist squats of Rotterdam. On the back of the single a plan of the squats can be noticed. Other bands connected to the squats were a.o. The Black Sheep and Dull Schicksal. Niew Hip Stilen made one album on Eksakt records called Heartsounds and Murmers that still stands as one of the most inventive and interesting Dutch albums from the eighties.
As for these two songs: this week I found some self-recorded cassettes: blank with handwriting on them. All full concerts of eighties bands that played in Holland. Some of them contain the recordings of the legendary Pandora's Music Box Festival that took place three times in Rotterdam from 83' to 85'. It was a unique festival of new wave, avant-garde and industrial music. You can find a blog dedicated to the festival here. Bands like Fad Gadget, Clock DVA, The Durutti Column, X-Mal Deutschland and SPK all played the first edition. Most of those recordings are available online. Niew Hip Stilen also played and even released a hyperrare cassette with those recordings that was uploaded here.
So as you can see the recordings are actually already available there, but here we have two of the songs in a slightly better sound quality since it was broadcasted by the VARA Moondogs radioshow. Moondogs was a Dutch radioshow from the eighties dedicated to interesting contemporary music with in depth specials around certain bands. Also you can hear the host talking about the band.
Get two rare Niew Hip Stilen live songs HERE
Hi Bence, Henk hier from the Madrotter blog.... That cassette from Niew Hip Stielen that I posted on my blog... It's a bit of a mystery, Maarten told me they, Niew Hip Stielen, never released it and he has no idea who did. I bought it somewhere in the 80's in a record store in Rotterdam, Haddock they were called, and they only had one copy.... I was actually standing in the front when they played at the Pandora Festival :) Saw Maarten also play live on the streets with his old punk band The Rondos, back in '79....
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I love this blog, will link it at my blog so I don't have to search for it anymore :)
Best wishes from Cihideung, Bandung, West-Java....
Henk Madrotter