We sat together and talked about music, freelancing and inspiration. Wouter and I met years ago when I sold my old working desk on Marktplaats.nl. A funny coincidence that set the foundation of an interesting friendship and collaboration on various of Wouters projects. 

What a nice studio you got here, Wouter. I am glad you are still using my old IKEA desk which I sold you a few years ago. (Wouter laughs) How did you actually come to making music?

Let me think…With 15 years, I started to play saxophone. I didn’t play an instrument before and I really started to like it all of a sudden. I was also good in drawing but I couldn’t do both together…and so I had to decide. My dad didn’t really like my decision. He didn’t really believe that I would ever be able to make a living with playing an instrument.

As a freelancer, your work must ultimately have a lot of influence on your private life. Can you give examples?

Yes. My work takes a lot energy and time also. When other people are free, I have to work, during a lot of evenings and in the weekends. This means I do not have normal social life like most people. Last week I did four gigs, plus a one day with evening teaching. I do not see my parents and other family as much as I would like, there are periods that I do see my wife only a couple of times in a week. Next to that there are music lessons and band management. When you get home, you just want to do nothing and just hold still for a while.

I can relate to that, yes. Working freelance demands a lot of your freetime, but also has its advantages.  Setting your own goals, spontaneous holidays, working in pajamas….How do the people around you cope with this? 

My wife has nothing against me working in my studio with pajamas *laughs*
I guess when you find the right people in your life who can cope with it or come from a similar background, it works quite well.

Yes it does. How does the schedule of a regular freelance work day look like? When I get up, the first thing I do is boot up my workstation to read email and then launch photoshop. But it is not every day like that. Sometimes I have to go to a photo shoot or I am hooked on an early flight to a client in Germany.

There are no regular days. I try to play the saxophone every day, but a lot of times I do not find the time. I do spend a lot of time on promotion and administration. I have to do a lot of phone calls and mails to organize the concerts, the line-up, the replacements. Sometimes I need to arrange, compose, produce or transcribe music. Doing gigs also takes a lot of time, you have to travel, to do a soundcheck, have dinner, change clothes, and often a lot of waiting is involved. Normally doing a gig takes 7-10 hours.

You are working on numerous projects at the same time. What helps you staying sane and organized?

I like working on different projects. When I am doing just one project or playing only one kind of music for a long time, I get bored. So I gives me energy to work on different projects and with several bands. The negative side effect of it is that your energy gets shattered. You simply cannot do everything yourself, so now I finally work with an art worker, a bookings agency and promotion agent. Sometimes I concentrate on composing, sometimes on producing, sometimes on engineering, sometimes on studying the saxophone, sometimes on sound design. To keep organized I keep an agenda. Also a lot of software tools on the internet are very helpful. Google provides some basic apps that are perfect for my needs.

At this moment, you are all busy promoting your new project Neobash! and you were presenting your new album to the public at the paradiso on December 20th. What was your inspiration for this type of music?

At first I got inspired by Squarepusher, a bass player who was doing a lot of crazy things with electronics. But I liked to combine real drums with beats, and sound design with music. I always have been interested in the combination of acoustic instruments and electronics.

Acoustic music we all know, it has been explored in the past. It is not easy to create something that not has been done before, without going into extremes! Electronic music to me is very interesting but also misses something. Electronics combined with music that is being played on real instruments comes to life. For example, I think the EWI as an instrument is kind of boring and cheesy too, saxophone & electronics is a much more interesting subject to me. You have this fantastic expressive personal instrument to start with, which can be enhanced or even interact with the electronic world.

Hold on, What is the EWI?

It’s a wind controlled synthesizer with a mouth piece. You play it like any woodwind-type of instrument, only you can make it sound like a piano or like an e-bass if you want, because it can control any kind of digitally controlled sound source.

For a writer, the appearance of a blank white screen can be either staggering or horrifying. I can imagine it must be the same for a musician sitting in front of their digital audio workstation with a blank score window. How do you usually start composing a new track? What do you do in the beginning to get your first draft together?

Difficult question. When I sit down at the piano, mostly something comes up. The piano is ideal because it combines melody, harmony, bass and rhythm in a logical way. When it sounds good on piano, you can easily translate it to real instruments or virtual instruments. On the other hand if you think about a certain line-up first, it can inspire you also. Like composing for string quartet, only this line-up can get you going. These days, you have access to almost any sound, which can be a little bit overwhelming, so it is a good idea to think about restrictions. I once created a total score with just one sample and one effect, a delay with feedback, so the sample started oscillating and creating al kinds of sounds. What I want to say is that composing becomes more easy when you have a clear purpose, assignment or restrictions.

When I designed the package of your cd, it was quite a challenge to get that huge list of musicians contributing to this album in place. How did you get to know each other and what are your methods to collaborate on an album like “Neobash”?

 Most of the musicians I know very well and I played with them many times. The tracks where prepared by me, Jan van Wieringen and Danny Weijermans. When the tunes where in a programmed condition into the computer I did ask the musicians to play a long. The musicians on the record are all very creative, so the musical ideas where all over the place. Jan did edit some drums and so did I. As far as the other instruments concerned, It was up to me to chop all the tracks up and make the final musical choices. Sometimes this means throwing everything away and use only pattern. Sometimes this means to take something from the end of a track to the beginning.

It sounds very complex. How much time do you spend on a track?

Don’t ask…it took too long.

 It must have driven you into insanity. What do you do to keep yourself motivated and/or to refuel your creative energy? 

There have been periods that I put this project in the closet and I tried to forget about it. But it always felt that the music was great and special because of all the love, energy that went into it. Not only mine, also from all the musicians especially Jan van Wieringen and also Danny Weijermans.

I saw on your Facebook page that you just recently won the “Dutch Innovation Award for Music Education”. What exactly did you do there?

I have won such a price because of an idea for creating interesting musical material for kids in group lessons. It does not anything to do with the foundation.

 Does this have to do with your organization “Musica Favela”?

No, no. It was just for my activity as a teacher. The organization is completely unrelated to that.

 Which brings us to your other project “Musica Favela”. You have been doing this for a while now and I am also happy to help you out with photography and a little online publicity. How long have you been doing this and what is your most thoughtful moment while you were at the favelas?

When I was around 20 years old I drove from one airport to another in Bombay for half an hour in an open bus through the slums. This was a life changing experience, because then I saw with my own eyes that hell is not created by the devil, but by man. Being In the favelas I was really surprised that the children where so talented and full of life. Children are children, they do need our attention and love, where ever they live. This cannot be replaced by any material objects.

True thing. Wouter, thanks for this little interview.

For those who are interested, Neobash! is performing live on a show at Radio 6 on February 15.

References:

http://www.wouterwierda.nl/
http://www.neobash.nl/
http://www.musicafavela.nl/
http://paradiso.nl/
http://www.radio6.nl/programma/334/mijkes-middag.html

For its final show in its Amsterdam space before a transatlantic move to California, GUNS & BUTTER launches Summer Phantoms, featuring four faces from the Amsterdam artscape: the photo installation (Ralph de Lange), the Burmese royal (Sawan Yawnghwe), the visionary sculptor (Midas Zwaan) and the up-and-comer (Vasco Vicente).

SAWAN YAWNGHWE

Yawnghwe’s suite is based loosely on Martin Kippenberger’s Spiderman Studio of 1996, in which Kippenberger plays with the idea of the 20th century artist as superhero and questions how heroic those artists actually were. Referencing art historical precedents on each surface, Yawnghwe enters a tête-à-tête with Kippenberger. He repaints the artist as superhero, who, conducting his work in secret, is conflicted with his own power and responsibility to the public.

RALPH DE LANGE

At the center of de Lange’s installation is Cleopatra. She who was said to control every gaze, is lost here under layers, merely an image of an image, an icon exclusively perceived and transmitted through visual representations. Centuries of male fantasies, of her exoticism, luminosity, opulent wealth and power, diminished to a picture of Elizabeth Taylor on a pale book.
Landscapes behind multi-hued filters take on the appearance of film stills. The series conveys a mood or a feeling but without a plot. De Lange sets the landscapes in a state of flux. It suggests nature’s underlying dreamy structures, endless growth and abundance, and, ultimately, underlines our shared need to connect with it and the stories we create.

MIDAS ZWAAN

In antique stores across the Netherlands, Zwaan hunts for found objects with which he constructs baroque, surrealist, carnivalesque structures. Echoing the dark unease of early 20th century readymades, the second-hand objects, in their new function, become symbols for the excess of consumer society, one that benefits from death and power. Memories and sentiments play a central role in Zwaan’s work. A diversity of auction crates, pirate chests and suitcases become nostalgic show boxes. Decadently appealing and suggestively threatening, Zwaan’s choice of objects amplifies the ominous atmosphere of destruction, fame and self-promotion. A look into these show boxes requires a meticulous eye that plays with the magic and intimacy between the spectator and the work.

VASCO VICENTE

Vicente, a Portuguese art director, began drawing, sketching, and painting, in order to make visible what navigated him. Previously, as Vicente does in his vocation, he employed design programs in the creation of his final product. Yet he realized an authentic expression was vacant in each piece. Turning to traditional methods, imperfections and textures started to make sense, and Vicente found in his disillusionment with the digital that craft is not dead; it is possible to do everything with one’s hands.
The works exhibited here take their point of departure through Vicente’s expat lens of Amsterdam contemporary youth culture. Documented moments become isolated icons— strangely beautiful and discretely grotesque.

Summer Phantoms is on view THURS, FRI, SAT 12 – 6 until FEB. 23

We organiseren ons eigen huisfeestje! Maar dan in Hanneke+Mixtup stijl!

Zonder de druk en het gedoe, maar wel met dat huiselijk sfeertje; gympies aan! Met al je vrienden bij elkaar! En dan lekker zelf zien waar het heengaat.

En we hebben ook nog eens de Nationale Postcode Loterij zo ver gekregen hun vuurwerkshow recht voor onze neus te houden. Lief he? Alles kan!

Facebook: facebook.com/event

Ingredienten voor Hanneke+Mixtup’s Huisfeest:
Twister Battle Super Force
De Cartoonjockey
MC Knapperend Haardvuur
DJ Snackies Delen
Spotify Mixtape by DJ Request – submit your songs!
Partypaint
*Other Super Exciting Secret Acts – To be revealed!*

Programma:
Deur Open: 21.00
Deur op Slot: 23.00
Eind: 03.00

21.00 – Dress Up Chest + Partypaint
22.00 – Live Music by …
23.00 – Deur op slot en dan (Geheim)
23.50 – Aftellen met Arie
00.00 – Vuurwerkshow Nationale Postcodeloterij
01.00 – DJ (secret) voor een nieuwjaarsdansje
02.00 – DJ Request

JA MAAR, HOE ZIT HET NOUOU?
Belangrijk! Zorg dat je naam bij de betaling zit voor de gastenlijst!
Toegang: €25
Op rekeningnummer: 55.89.21.876
T.n.v: MixTup
Opmerking: Jouw naam + Hannekes Huisfeestje

Tot snel!
♥ Hanneke+Mixtup

First track Fishes is a kick off to a smashing record, full of upbeat, energetic garage- indie songs. Instrumentally, Wateramp is very strong. The guitarrifs are next to brilliant, the rhythm section steady as a rock. But also the lyrics are surprisingly mature and rhythmically interesting.

There might be just one point where the age of the gentlemen becomes a bit of a problem: their authenticity, their ‘own sound’ isn’t really there. And is very clear who’re the biggest inspirers: the Arctic Monkeys. It’s even hard to hear if this is the new record of those British superheroes.

That’s a good thing, because these are teenage boys, almost (Almost! Not to be overrating..) equalling their idols. But
it’s never a good thing to copy. The cute Alex Turner-English accent (although the lead vocals are good, and so are the second voices), the jumpy rhythms and rough outbursts, it’s a bit too much.

Nevertheless, these four boys are one of Amsterdam’s little wonders. They produced an impressive debut, and I can’t wait to see them live, I’m very curious about whether or not they can live up to the high standard they created. But my hopes for them are high.

Hurray for Palio SuperSpeed Donkey!

Listen to more of the work at the Palio SuperSpeed Donkey MySpace page.

Date: Thursday,1st of November
Time: open – 5:30pm, start – 6:00pm, closing – 6:20
Location: DuintjerCS – Vijzelstraat 72, 1017 HL Amsterdam
Price: 12 euro
Link: Facebook Event

So you are facing the weekend with again the same cafe | club | expo | office boozer | people? Well, we’re not!

How you ask?
With the SneakShop. A pilot of a brand new, creative event: Fun, connective, creative workshops at a special location.

What’s the catch?
You will have to come and see what kind of workshop you’ll be getting! We’re sneaky that way.So what will you be getting?
2 x 30 minute workshops!Ok. You want a small hint? Well, it could be a workshop…
…styling for beginners
…airguitar
…story telling
…urban/window/guerilla gardening
…bachelorparties
…football rules
…feel a face
…pro paper airplanes
…one minute movie making
…memory tricks
…market belting

Come and find out!

SneakShop by MixTup // Creative Accelerator
DuintjerCS by Creative Spaces
sneakshop@mixtup.nl

Sarah Ferri by Kaspar Vogelzang

Time: Thursday,October 4st · 8:30pm
Location: Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond, Nes 45
Price: 8 euro (online) , 10 euro (venue)
Link: Sonic Soirée

Next week is alread the second round of the Sonic Soirée. An ‘adventurous voyage of discovery through the latest, most exciting alternative pop and rock from the low countries… prepare for a surprisingly intimate evening concert’

Usually we would omit big stages but initiatives framing new bands always has our back. Add to it impressive lighting, rich sound and innovative music and you have more then a worthwhile to start-up the early hours of a Thursday evening.
Although I would have liked to see their usual bean bags & pillows set-up hugging the musicians, it is still a really a sweet sit down and lean back kind of experience. Giving the musician the attention they deserve.
This time round it will be the garage jazz-like Dans Dans and the experimental BRNS from Belgium and the underestimated Dutch Luik.

Spotify is one of the largest streaming services around. Offering digitally streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.

Spotify will publish the musical tastes of MixTup on the Spotify Blog starting next Monday in it’s special Music Monday segment. I will try to tell you about the newest and exciting streams cherry picked from indie labels, local acts, partner blogs, the MixTup studio or general awesomeness which catches my eye.

Hope To Broadcast To You Soon!

(have a taste…)

I do not state this often, but the final nail in the coffin of Dutch music radio would be to omit this latest work by songwriter and visual artist Richard Bolhuis. He forms the core of House of Cosy Cushions together with Irish drummer Stephen Kiernan.  A band with with as many international contributors as interesting influences.

His latest release of this “post-rock” album shows multidisciplinary skills and genres skillfully crafted together in a single theme. However it does offer such diversity that indierock, ambient or folk, most music lovers can find something to put on repeat-play.

You could say not all songs have their strenghts, but that is more a matter of taste then analysis. The indie rock song Outcast Cats could easily be hitting the charts, the amazing but short Lake Dwelling one could envision as that of one memorable movie score , Vlieland (how Dutch can get you get it) creates an twilight image of the island you would never expect and the enigmous album title Haunt me Sweetly takes you into a journey of the darker side of Dutch music. In short, all pieces of this album deserve credit for rising above the fold.

So if you are an indie music lover, I see no excuse of not including this album in your collected works of Dutch alternative music.

The album release tour will hit Amsterdam in the Paradiso on the 27th of September.

So Simone’s story starts with her first careful steps on stage in the year 2000…right?
Well, that was when I started performing on stage in New York and I released my first record in 2003.  I didn’t count that one because I wasn’t that happy how that turned out. It was all on me so I redid most of the songs on that record. The one I do count is the album I Am The Man which I released in 2007 and just 2 years later Yakiimo was released.

Do you miss those earlier days?
Noooo, hell no! U-uh, I wasn’t any good, just nervous and very hard on myself. I just want to get better at it; practice, practice, practice. My first hurdle during a performancewas just picking up a glass without shaking! It was not even the nerves because when something of mine sounds good, a thing inside my being starts trembling and shaking out of excitement. Then I get worried because people might think I am scared. But I am much more calmer when I am on stage on these days, fortunately. Why? Do musicians have a romantic view of their earlier days…?

Well, I ask because a lot of musicians feel more connected to the crowd then later on when the audience become more fleeting during tours or playing bigger venues.
In a certain way, I do look back more fondly on the time when I was in New York; the people I was hanging out with, the parties, the poets and artists. It was New York in a different time period and I loved that.

A cliche question but what were the inspirations for the album? It is very visual, I feel.
There’s a lot death on the album; my aunt and my boyfriend’s sister died. There is also lyrics about a friend who wanted to commit suicide but there is also love on the record; I broke up with my boyfriend later on and fell in love again afterwards. The song What the devil brings comes from something pure,  passionate and arousing. Never be that tough also has the same source.

One of the last songs Bonny Brea however, has a recording of an ice cream truck. When I first moved to New York, I heard these strange flutes. It was always far away. When I found it, it all fell into place. My producer recorded it, then we slowed it down three different ways but added it in the same timeframe. I think I wanted to say something about the awareness of different realities that could take place at the same time, as the deeper meaning of that song. All inspired by an icecream truck.

Your aunt wrote the last song right? Do you think there is some genetics involved?
It’s funny, everyone is always very excited about my family being full of musicians and artists but I didn’t experience it that way; I grew up in this vacuüm. I love the idea of genetics being something that is passed on though.

Talking about family; I love the cover of your album, it’s like an oil painting…
Yeah, that’s the photo my father took on Hawaii. That’s me on the sand when I was 3 years old. To the right is my mother and in the middle our good family friend Lopetti from Tonga. It was taken at night, in total darkness with a 3 minute exposure. I guess it was light of the moon and stars creating the ambient light. I really like it because it so strange; it’s like a dream and that’s why I think it fits the album so wonderfully.

Do you like being involved with the visuals?
Oh yeah, I used to be a photographer and I also made films. So I love to be involved with edit and the final process. What I also found curious is that I used to work on video sets as a photographer; I saw all these bands come by who really detested doing film or photoshoot. They were not interested in the video of any imagery.

However, I think music and imagery fit together seamlessly and I also love these general creative constructions. I think video and visuals have even become more important since the rise of youtube, you can’t even say if MTV does videoclips anymore. Music has always been tied to visuals; like theater, opera and of course, in film music plays such a major part. Also videos are just fun to do!

I usually don’t ask about producers. The audience’s interest usually goes out to the artists themselves but they play a very important for the final sound of the album. So why did you decide to work with Samuel Bing creatively?
I loved the recording process I did together with him and his partner Julian Watts. It was just so much fun; everytime I would leave the studio I was amazed how much fun I had and how easy it felt. I just knew I wanted that feeling again. Their music they produced was usually very different then mine, but I knew Samuel had a very wide spectrum of skills. Also I didn’t want to make another Nashville record and I wanted stay closer to home where I felt comfortable.

The interesting thing is, we were planning to create the album in a month but in the end it took nearly a year; all the experiences and inspirations I had, which I mentioned earlier,  just needed time to grow into those songs.

Again, I love the dark ambient mood you have set…
I like dark sounds as well. One of the reasons that I never done this before because I was always writing with an acoustic guitar, I am not a very technical person. So if you start writing on acoustic guitar, what are you going to do? Well, you just have this one instrument, so you end up with folk music you know?

I went into that direction, so I was inside the constraints of this instrument but once I had access to producers and all the stuff they had… I like throbbing gristle! I like dark shit! I am not only the beep beep girl. I wanted to have more creative flexibility, so it was great.  Also I love that I am just singing without an instrument but I want to make music without words really, I don’t like to listen to music with words. They just go round and round in my head. I just want to have… space.

We’re very happy Simone got her wish. Here’s a clip showing the end result of her journey into this space…
(Interview made possible by Konkurrent) 

For more information visit this page: http://blog.modelminds.nl/?p=5516
Or click on the image below to download the information flyer of the training