Hooverphonic

<PRE> It occurs only very seldom that a new group bursts on to the music scene with as much style as Hooverphonic. Even before their debut CD was released in the autumn of 1996, the story was spread that one of their Geike, Alex, Frank, Raymond and Eric songs '2Wicky' had made the soundtrack of Bernardo Bertolucci's 'Stealing Beauty'. The next CD, 'A new stereophonic sound spectacular', effortlessly withstood the expectations and hype. Not bad for a small group that grew out of the Flemish clay soil, consisting of the young and gifted studio technicians(Alex Callier and Frank Duchene), a guitar-playing tax official (Raymond Geerts) and an elf, trained at the Academy of Dramatic Art with an enchanting voice (Liesje Sadonius). 'A new stereophonic sound spectacular' was an exceptionally beautiful and slightly strange CD; a combination of electronics and classical instruments, of bits & bytes and blood, a CD filled with brittle, almost translucent pop music based on hypermodern beats. The kind of music that is also swiftly classified as dance by the public, because they are not immediately able to identify it. "We first write our songs on guitar and only then go to work with samplers and synthesiser. "We make pop music,"replied the group. And also: "If there is a power failure during a concert, we simply continue acoustically." In any case, the general public loved it. According to the group, '2Wicky' was no more than 'A musical exercise based on an Isaac Hayes sample', but it became a radio hit in several countries. The record received rave reviews from the critics and they made a much-acclaimed tour through Europe and America. This was a busy period during which the group also had to search for a new singer. Liesje Sadonius left the group in mutual friendship and after an audition in the spring of 1997 she was replaced by the barely 18-year old Geike Arnaert. With the new singer, Geike, they played at all other major European summer festivals as well as nearly 30 concerts during their American tour, mostly as the supporting act for Fiona Apple, with several very succesful headlining concerts on the Westcoast. Short after Geike joined the group, they also started recording their new CD 'Blue wonder power milk'. The recordings were made in roughly four stages: in July '97 all the vocals were recorded at the Midas Studio in Lokeren. All the strings were then recorded in the Galaxy Studios in Mol, both studios situated in Belgium. The rest was recorded in November and December '97 in New York with co-producer Mark Plati, at the Battery Studios and the Looking Glass Studios of Philip Glass. The mixing was done in the course of January '98 at Studio Plus XXX in Paris while the CD was mastered in Portland, Maine by Bob Ludwig. " . . . we really wanted to have Mark Plati as our co-producer, mixer and Alex, Raymond and Frank programmer," says Frank, "because of his work on David Bowie's Earthling". "His programming was really up-to-date and he was able to tighten everything up rhythmically. Quite a guy." And equally special is 'Blue wonder power milk', a record with which Hooverphonic clearly establishes how they intend to move forward: away from the much too restrictive Portishead-Morcheeba-triphop-whatever-it-may-be-corner in which people have failed to push them, and develop in the width and depth. From the beautiful opening song 'Battersea' over 'This strange effect', subtly testing our hearing limits (dogs love it), which had been a part of their live act for some time, to the self-evident single and soundtrack and ending in light inebriation and preferably somewhere near a cool Caribbean beach with 'Club Montepulciano', 'Blue wonder power milk' is more varied and in many ways more impressive than its predecessor. " The new CD is warmer, less tenuous, more symphonic," says Alex. "And the Alex, Geike, Raymond and Frank songs are better. We delved more into the essence. The icy chill of 'A new stereophonic...' has gone: it all sounds much more emotional." "This CD is more intimate and anecdotal," adds Frank. "The previous CD mainly took place in a different galaxy, while this one is closer to home. And Geike has delivered a truly exceptional performance. Her voice sounds absolutely terrific.?" Another thing that catches the attention is the many violins on "Blue wonder power milk". In nearly every song a formation of violinists drops from the sky. "It has been a childhood dream to work with strings,"says Alex. "I find strings incredibly powerful and emotional. I wanted to keep the mysterious atmosphere of the previous record, but we aimed to achieve the same effect with less electronics and more acoustical instruments." One of the influences Alex kept in mind while making this record was the great Serge Gainsbourg: "You could say that I have listened to Gainsbourg since the cradle. His string arrangements have always given me gooseflesh. In fact, you can also hear the influence of Jane Birkin in the vocal parts." Violins, acoustical instruments, double bases, honest wood instead of electronics. It seems like Hooverphonic wants to do everything they can to prove that they are more than just another sample group. "Why should we sample someone else?s work if we can play it ourselves" says Alex. "We can write enough material ourselves, we ourselves are quite capable of creating an atmosphere, so why should we still use external samples? In fact, we have never constructed songs around samples, only the other way round. A sample serves to clothe an existing song, to give it a nice twist or a special accent. It should never become the essence of a song. The good song remains the basis of everything. We could deduce as much from 'Blue wonder power milk'. Let yourself be caught up in the exotic swing of 'Club Montepulciano', sung by Liesje Sadonius and written after a kitsch & cocktail night out in Camden Town, and absolutely irresistible; let the exciting marching rhythm and limitless horns in the fantastic 'One way ride' blow the moss out of your ears; listen to the daring sound decor of lutes and mandolins in 'Renaissance affair' and know that large parts of your body will break out in the best case of gooseflesh you have ever had during the icily beautiful 'Eden'. Hooverphonic: for a short while they were turning circles in their personal universe, but now they are among us again, and unadulterated stardust is sticking to the songs they brought back with them. It is up to you to discover the wonderful world of 'Blue wonder power milk'. </PRE>  <HR align='center' width='50%'> <B>Your browser does not support frames!</B><BR><BR> Some of the features on this site require a frames-capable browser, since much of the functionality would be impossible without frames. For best results, we recommend that you download <A HREF='http://home.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/client_download.html' TARGET='_top'>the newest version of Netscape</A> now.<P> <A HREF='http://home.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/client_download.html' TARGET='_top'><IMG SRC='http://home.netscape.com/comprod/mirror/images/now30_button.gif' ALT='Download Netscape 3.0' WIDTH='88' HEIGHT='31' BORDER='0'></A><BR CLEAR='ALL'><P> <B>AOL Users:</B> You must be running AOL 2.5 or later for Windows to use Netsca pe (Keyword: UPGRADE). You will also need to download and install WINSOCK.DLL (Keyword: WINSOCK). Macintosh users should contact AOL directly for help.<BR><BR>