#porselain

[loveminimalstyle]

[doomedandstoned]

In Conversation With Dutch Avant Gardists Porselain

~By Willem Verhappen~

I was first introduced to PORSELAIN through the live stream of their show at the Effenaar in Eindhoven, back in June. The band was being advertised as a young avant-garde act. That's not something that I usually fancy, but those live streams were what was keeping me sane in those days of lockdown. From the first notes of their opening track, "Duende," it was clear to me that this wasn't going to be comfortable background music. The term avant-garde seemed to be invented for these four young musicians, so focus was required. I decided to extend my lunch break a little and just watch the whole thing. By the end of the show, I was sold. While the band's sonic assault barely resembles anything related to doom, save for maybe the slow pace and the dark themes, it certainly is doom.

At the time, Rob Hammer and I were working on what would become Doomed & Stoned in the Netherlands Part 2 and I pondered for a long time as to whether Porselain should be on that compilation. In the end, it felt wrong not to include them. Porselain sounds like no other band on that compilation, but I consider them one of the most interesting and unique bands we've got in our little country.

December 20th marks the 1 year anniversary of their Duende release party and that's as good a reason as any to have a conversation with vocalist Micky Huijsmans about the band's music, how they continue without a bass player, and what it's like being a graduate of a metal school.

First of all, thank you for making time for this interview. How are you doing during these, well, strange times?

Strange times indeed. I think everyone needs to find their way again, but I’m keeping busy writing. I’m currently writing for Porselain, but in the meantime I’ve also started a new project. It’s a good time to get creative.

It certainly is. Is there anything you can tell us about your new project?

Not much, to be honest. It’s something completely different from Porselain, also a bit more metal.

I’m happy to hear that you can keep yourself entertained. You recently released a new single. Does that mean we can expect more from Porselain in the near future?

Like I said, we’re working on new music, but we’re still in the early stages of a whole new process, because our bassist Jim quit the band earlier this year. We quickly decided to continue without a bass player, which is quite strange of course. It means we have to find a completely different way of writing music, we really have to rediscover everything.

Previously, our guitar player, Cas, would come up with some music, to which I would add my vocal lines. Finally, the glue holding the song together would be the bass and drums. You can imagine things get more difficult when the bass is cut out of the equation.

That does leave something of a void in your sound, yes.

Indeed. So we were unsure about what we were going to do, but we decided to go and make something and just release it. We have to make music now. Go!

The music video was made in the same way. Usually we have a whole concept in mind and we go out and film, after which I spend hours editing. Now we were all at home, of course, and we only had one word as a theme, “reflection”. We gave ourselves 30 minutes to just make something and that’s going to be it. The images you see aren’t edited or anything. They are just taken from the reel, so to speak, and put into the video.

The result was quite different from what I was expecting, but I really like it, especially the drone elements. Is this the direction Porselain will be going?

Thank you. We’re certainly going to make more use of synthesizers, as well as other instruments, to fill up our sound. For us, it’s also a surprise how we will sound, since we’re still in the middle of our writing process.

Are you also planning on using the synthesizer live, or will you be using backing tracks?

[laughing] No, we will never use backing tracks. I’m not a fan of that. And there are multiple ways to do things. You can have a full orchestra playing along, or just add a small synth layer for atmosphere. Those are two completely different things, of course.

Duende by Porselain

  Duende by Porselain

We’ve already been heavily discussing the future, but I can imagine that not all of our readers are familiar with Porselain. Could you introduce the band for us?

Porselain is an avant-garde alternative rock group, now consisting of three people. We released our debut record last year. It actually just turned one year old last October. To be honest, I find it difficult to describe us.

I can imagine, as it's quite a unique sound. I hear some doom influences in your music. Is that something you recognize?

I do get it, but it’s not necessarily our intention to incorporate doom into our sound. We don't really fit in anywhere. For instance, we once played at a black metal show. The atmosphere is similar, you know, but the music is completely different. The opinions vary on this subject.

Duende by Porselain

  Duende by Porselain

I must admit that I had been doubting for quite some time as to whether I should include you on our compilation or not.

I can imagine. Did you get any reactions on that? Like, “What’s up with that weird band?”

Not really no, but I didn't get any complaints either. Did you notice a spike in interest in Porselain?

We did see a slight increase in Spotify streams, yes.

That’s always nice to hear.

In your bio, you state that you’re more than a band, that you have a wider concept. Can you elaborate a bit on that?

We have a broader vision, of which music is still the biggest part, but that vision is completed by all the visual things we add. We’ve made music videos for some of the tracks of our last album, completely DIY. We had no experience with making music videos, but we just went for it. It’s then that you realize that, even though you haven’t had any film training or anything, that with a clear vision, you can convey your message. And that’s the best part. We’ve put those video’s together without knowing exactly what we were doing, but somehow it works. That’s why I like making things for Porselain.

Do you have a set order in which you create your works? Does it always start with a piece of music or do you also have ideas for visuals on which you start to build?

So far, everything grew from the music, but I think that’s changing now. We already have an idea for our next record. That record will be a concept album, which is different from our debut. We also want to create visuals for the entire album. Almost a movie, you could say.

What’s also worth noting, is that you’re graduates from the Metal Factory. Can you tell us a bit about that study?

The Metal Factory is a vocational education, located in the Dynamo club in Eindhoven, so you’re literally in a concert hall. You have all sorts of classes, like music theory, music history, but also the normal courses like English, math, things like that. You have classes like Band Skills, which is aimed towards being a session musician. You get some songs you have to rehearse and for your exam you have to perform them in random groups, for a grade.

Porselain was actually conceived in one of those classes, called Band Development. You get a lot of creative freedom there, which I always really liked about Metal Factory. They give you a certain amount of time and in the end you need to have a certain amount of music. You’re free to do that any way you see fit. How cool is that?

Duende by Porselain

  Duende by Porselain

  Duende by Porselain

That's pretty cool, yeah. I can imagine that your creativity was pushed to the limits for Porselain, right?

That was a very strange period, really. We started off with a different drummer in school and we weren’t really sure what we were making. It was very strange, but some two weeks before our exams everything fell into place. We realized we’d created something cool, something new. It was a strange turnaround for us. After that we continued with a different drummer and eventually we did our final exam with Porselain.

Did you get a good grade?

[laughing] Of course. Let me think. I believe it was a 9.6 [out of 10]. I think that’s one of the great things of the Metal Factory. You get a lot of creative freedom, and from what I hear about other musical educations, you don’t get that as much.

And it’s focused on metal, of course.

And the teachers are great as well. I’ve learned a lot from them.

I can imagine. From what I’ve seen, some of the teachers play in pretty famous bands [e.g. Epica, Within Temptation, Textures]. I assume those musicians aren’t the ones teaching math and English.

No, but those teachers are usually also musicians, so that's nice. There’s usually some music involved.

I’m afraid we’ve pretty much reached the end of the interview. Do you have any final words for our readers?

That’s always a tough question. Thank you for reading! [laughs]

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music.

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Soon in the shop www.vintage-retro.nl

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New second hand #teacup. #teaaddict #tealover #oolong #porselain #térista

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#flores #capodimonte #porselain #flowers

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#flores e #putti #capodimonte #porselain #flowers

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Holiday gifts for Daniel! My favs out of all the stuff I made this holiday season :3

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Birthday gift for my sis - lots of kitties! I bought the kitty mug, but added a tail because why not C: