Lately, I’ve been listening a lot to the Japanese (noise) band Boredoms. Their record Vision Creation Newson has captivated mefor its beautiful percussion. The drums are compelling in their simplicity and propelling through their continuous tribal beat. Anyway, it's a nice change of pace from all that samey American rock music. This made me realise how popular music isdominated by artists from the Anglo-American world. I you’d ever bother to peakover these borders, you will find plenty of interesting artists. My brother and I provide proof right here.
Let’s kick this off with some viva Hollandia: few Dutch sound as interesting and refreshing as Intwine. Part of the appeal of this band is that they, especially early on in their career, were difficult to classify. The main formula is rock, some songs are loud, aggressive, leaning more to metal, other songs are laid-back, passionate, reminding more of reggae. More often than not both moods – aggression and passion – are mixed in one song. From the few Dutch bands that I listened to when I was younger, Intwine is the only one I still revisit every now and again. To be honest though, this is nationalism with a foot/side-note. Ever hear of Aruba? It’s an island in the Caribbean, part of the Dutch kingdom.[1] Most of Intwine’s founding members are in fact Aruban. It says plenty about my disregard for Holland’s musical culture that the most interesting Dutch band (in my honest opinion) is not all that Dutch.
Intwine suddenly rose to fame some ten years ago, but has slowly faded from public memory in the years thereafter. Indeed, their music became progressively less exciting with every new album and it is especially their first (self-titled) record that still stands out for me for its Caribbean (‘island’) vibe. It are not only the three pretty straight-forward songs that did well on MTV that still impress me. No, it are the brilliant blends of Caribbean grooves and rock, that I can appreciate – more so than when I was twelve years old. Oh, and the vocalist is incredible.
Founded in New York, but is far from American, Gogol Bordello is truly cosmopolitan. While many of the founding members were Eastern-European, now South America and Africa have joined the party as well (Gogol Bordello only need an Aussie and a penguin playing a baritone saxophone and all continents will be represented). Because of this unique mix of ethnicities, Gogol Bordello’s music is hard to classify. It is a (punk) rock band in essence, but with a heavy coating of different folk traditions from all over the world. While their earlier records basically sounded like anabolic gypsy music, aptly labelled gypsy punk, the band’s latest effort has plenty of South American inspiration as well. I can think of no better band for the wanderlust punk.
Why not listen to 'Wonderlust King'?
As far as non-native English speaking countries go, I think Sweden has some of the most interesting music to offer. Sweden (and the entire Scandinavian region in general) is mostly known as the area of Death Metal and Gothic music. But there is more.
Initially, I wanted to talk about Refused, one of the more famous punk bands from the 90s who created the amazing record The Shape of Punk to Come and subsequently imploded in ‘98 (let’s note that they were only recognised as great band AFTER they broke up). Much has been said about Refused already. They’re a great band who made/make great music and they are worth checking out if you don’t know them yet, BUT for this blog I’d like to take you to the other side of the musical spectrum.
One of the more successful Swedish bands in recent years would be the (now defunct) Electronic duo The Knife. Composed of the siblings Karin and Olof Dreijer, The Knife has released experimental electronic music which ranged from danceable disco tracks to 9 minute bird song samples. In 2009 The Knife was on a break, and Karin Dreijer used that time for a side project called Fever Ray.
Now Fever Ray is what I actually want to talk about.[2] If The Knife was daydream electro, than Fever Ray is nightmare ambient. Not the type of violent nightmare, but the slow creeping kind that gets under your skin. The kind you can get swallowed by in risk you lose your way completely.
It was at first the imagery that drew me to Fever Ray. As Fever Ray, Karin was dressed as if she stepped out of a dark fairy tale; shamanic robes, dreamcatchers, talismans and token, and hairdresses that seemed to be constructed from twigs and moss. To complete the look Karin painted her face as a skull, or with rich extravagant patterns and ancient marking. The look describes the music perfectly. Rich and deeply layered dark electronic patterns, with ghostly distorted vocals. Like you visit a shamanic ritual for a couple of minutes. Karin changes her voice to sound deep and manly, or layers it to sound like a horde of chanting Pagans. It also helps that she sings English with a strong Swedish accent. Every song has its own mood, ranging from dark and threatening to a hopefully sunny paradise sound (like on the album closer ‘Coconut’). For me, every song conjures up its own vivid imagery. No single song leaves me unmoved. This is the sound of Finland.
Sadly Fever Ray only released one record. It’s a timeless one though, and I deeply recommend it to any who enjoys the dark side of ambient electronics (and daydreams).
Listen to 'When I Grow Up'
There is no notable Eastern European influence in the music of this Polish progressive rock band. They have successfully managed to imitate and emulate progressive rock of the ‘60s and ‘70s by lifting the genre into the 21st century. Following in the footsteps of bands like Porcupine Tree, Riverside has incorporated a fair amount of metal influences into their music without becoming a metal band per se. It is this kind of creative adaption of the genre (instead of a simple copy-paste formula) that I really love. Another selling point is that Riverside, unlike many other progressive rock band, tends to just cut to the chase without wasting time on a lot of ambient filler.
Check out 'Artificial Smile'
Letting bro speak for a minute:
For my second band, I’d like to have a look at a little Dutch gem called De Staat (The State). Let me state that I don’t enjoy Dutch rock music at all (and with that Euro-rock in general). Most bands lean too much on Coldplay / Editors / Nickelback kind of pillars. Music is heavily “Americanised”, and turned into a bland “Post-Grunge” brainless rock pulp.
In other words, it’s dull and pretty forgettable.
Actually, I would almost go as far as saying that mainstream (northern) European rock music is fucking terminal!
De Staat is different. At first listen it’s easy to draw parallels to (later) Queens of the Stone Age. De Staat is more experimental though, throwing in a bit of electronics in their latest record. They’ve also made excursions into soul and R&B territories. And each of their records show progression to a definitive own characteristic sound. Most importantly though, De Staat shows a lot of talent and good musicianship, another thing that a lot of the bigger Dutch Rock acts simply (and painfully) lack. De Staat plays with different instruments, odd time structures, changing vocals. This makes every song a little adventure to listen too. I especially enjoy their latest record I_Con, which was released in 2013 and is all in all a great rock record. Some of the songs groove and rock, others creep and build up. There are straight up dance songs and songs that threaten to get destabilised by wild synths and fall apart halfway through. The record shows great variety between songs but always feels as a whole, solid experience. And as a result it sounds like something that’s, ironically, un-Dutch and maybe a bit American (but the good side of America, of course). I wouldn’t be surprised if this band will cross the Pacific any time soon.
Make your ears love 'Devil's Blood'
All these bands are great in their own way, but they are also very American/British in essence. Riverside and De Staat in particular are very ‘English’, but in a way Intwine and Gogol Bordello are as well. The essence of their music is the music from America en Britain. Even though they incorporate their own regional musical cultures, the biggest part of their lyrics are in English and the music is basically written for the conventional pop/rock instruments: guitars, bass and drums. Get the the double double quotation marks in the title now?
[1] Sadly that’s still a thing.
[2] Editorial note: I asked my brother to write about two bands. So far he has managed to slip in two additional ones…
