Niew Hip Stilen - Grüss Aus Wien & Kill Em All (Live at Pandora's Music Box Festival Rotterdam 1983, VARA Moondogs Radioshow), Netherlands

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
 

Palinckx & Palinckx - Maartse Buien -1984- (LP, Traction Avant), Netherlands

Jacques Palinckx (1959, Tilburg) is a Dutch Jazz and Impro guitarist and composer. He played a.o. with Guus Janssen septet, Maarten Altena Ensemble, Beukorkest, Big Bamboozle and improvised with Free-Jazz and improvisation musicians like Fred van de Hove, Evan Parker, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Christian Marclay, Daan Vandewalle, Peter van Bergen, Keith Rowe, Joseph Bowie, Gerry Hemmingway, Eugene Chadbourne.

During the early eighties the impro outfit Palinckx & Palinckx was established with brother Bert Palinckx (Bass), Frank van Oosterhout (Drums) and Hans Sparla (Trombone). This first album came out on the Dutch Traction Avant label, which was a sublabel of Eksakt Records. It was established to showcase the more serious Modern Composed and Jazz side of the label.

Maartse Buien is a Jazz album indeed, even more so Jazz in a very Dutch manner. Maartse Buien is the Dutch name for the typical Dutch rainfall during the month of March (and April). Because of the bad rainy climate of The Netherlands the rainfall during this period is often accompanied by hail and snow, creating different states of water pouring from the sky unexpectedly. The title track on the album reflects the mood during this period quite well, reminding me a lot of Louis Andriessens's Golven (Waves) soundtrack which is about the Dutch North Sea. It also hints a bit towards music on the Belgian Igloo label. Palinckx was included on this compilation I posted before.

The entire album consists of jazz that transcends into more experimental improvisational stuff, almost creating cinematographic pieces. Some of the pieces are quite beautiful. The improvisation scene of The Netherlands always merges trained classical and jazz music, with distinct Dutch melodies and anarchic improvisation (examples could be: Instant Composers Pool, The Ex, Han Bennink, Misha Mengelberg, Nine Tobs, Willem Breuker etc etc).

Although March is not here yet... it will come in a blink of an eye. We are bracing ourselves here in Holland!

Get it HERE

Jacques van Erven - Tunes & Scenery (Hard To Whistle) -1984- (Cassette, Eksakt 010), Netherlands

Jacques van Erven is a Dutch Artist and multi-intrumentalist from the city Eindhoven. He had some releases on the great impro-jazz and new wave fusion label Eksakt from the city Tilburg of which there are some compilations on the blog. Van Erven was also featured on this Christmas compilation and was a member of this obscure project.

Tunes & Scenery (Hard To Whistle) was his earliest solo effort and shows a geat combination of different moods and styles. It brings together synth sounds, cheap casio's, Jew's Harp, guitars, all types of drum sounds, improvisation and wave influences spread over fifteen songs. It reminds me of music somewhere in-between acts like Ptôse, Achwghâ Ney Wodei and Woo mixed with some new wave reminiscent of André de Saint-Obin. Very weird, very good and unclassifiable due to its variety of styles. Nice home-made Rock in Opposition with analogue synthesizers recorded on a four-track. A perfect release for Eksakt and pretty unique stuff from Holland I'd say.

It's not always May!

Update May 2020: Link removed due to reissue on Futura Resistenza Label

Various Artists - Fragment 2 -1985- (Cassette, Eksakt 014), Netherlands

After Fragment 1 that I posted not so long ago here is the second Fragment compilation created by Tilburg based label Eksakt (more info about Eksakt in the previous post). Just like the first one it contains some previously released and unreleased tracks combined with ethnographic recordings. This release came with a screen-printed artwork with cartoon-dogs as well. A similar dog became the logo for Eksakt on their other releases.

The most notable Dutch group present on this sampler is Kiem. Kiem came from Rotterdam and combined jazz influences with analog synthesizer electro and strong rhythmic elements. Rotterdam has one of the biggest ports of Europe and Kiem used these characteristic elements and sounds in their music. They created three albums which are absolutely amazing and pretty easy to get still. Their self-titled first is probably their best. Other Dutch figures on here are Eric Toornend, a member of post-punk group Exploiting The Prophets from Tilburg (also present on Fragment 1) and Toon Bressor who was in one of Holland's best groups from the eighties called Nasmak.

Dutch Artist and musician Jacques van Erven contributes a piano track and Dutch jazz-bass player Niko Langenhuysen does some solo tracks too. Langenhuysen used to be in the Tilburg based jazz group Groep Ohm in the early seventies and his album Hypo from 1984 is a real gem. Lastly there are post-punk tracks by obscure German band Les Autres and French band General Inconnu and a couple of ethnographic recordings from Indonesia and Sri lanka.

This is actually a great compilation with lots of hard to find tracks and also another piece of Dutch underground from the eighties.

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Fragment 1 -1984- (Cassette, Eksakt 011), Netherlands

So my friend Kim and I were looking for records here in Amsterdam on Queen's Day (actually called King's Day now), which is a Dutch festivity taking place at the end of april to celebrate the monarchy in a very commercial format which is quite absurd in itself. The only positive thing is that the whole city turns into a huge flea market and everyone is aloud to sell their second hand stuff in front of their house door. By accident we stumbled upon a shoebox full of old home-taping cassette releases from the end of the seventies and early eighties (we could not believe its content!). Some of those tapes are available on the net, whilst others are quite obscure and will be posted on the blog (it actually started with last post already).

Eksakt Records hailed from the Dutch city of Tilburg and was part of the Dutch home-taping scene but also incorporated more jazz and ethnic types of music into a new wave paradigm. Some of their best releases consisted o.a. of Dutch group Nieuw Hip Stilen and French act Ptôse. Actually Eksakt was one of the more interesting labels from the Dutch eighties because of the blurring of musical borders, combining DIY attitude with musicians with a conservatory background and an interest in less attention targeted foreign countries.

They also published a couple cassette compilations to showcase their releases together with music of their own taste. This first fragment compilation was their first endeavour doing this. It comes with a screen-printed artwork with cartoon-dogs on it. Featured on this compilation are ethnographic recordings from Samoa as well as Tilburg based Post-Punk group Exploiting The Prophets, Amsterdam based Moluccan percussionist Zeth Mustamu and Dutch impro-jazz saxophonist Paul van Kemenade. Also on here is Ptôse and half Half Japanese musician Jad Fair. The whole is held together by excerpts by Peer Raben, who created numerous soundtracks for New German Cinema enfant terrible director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Actually most songs are taken from real releases by all these artists but as a compilation it makes it worth it anyway.

The second Fragment cassette will follow soon. On the artwork it says that you have to use noise reduction to listen to this. Unfortunately (or luckily) I don't have that on my cassette deck, so quite some white noise is apparent. Make sure you find your way into the whole Eksakt Records catalogue, because there is lots of interesting stuff!

Get it HERE