Hoed u voor de koeterwaal

essay door Noor Mertens

(see english translation below)

❧
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite,the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

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Wild Wild Ambient Boys – We Don’t Rock

Review in Yeah I Know It Sucks
by Alex Spalding

ARE YOU READY TO ROCK!?!?

I SAID… ARE YOUUU… READDYYY… TO ROOOCCCKKK!?!?!

… No? Good, because We Don’t Rock is the next album up for review. It’s from an artsy, Devo-esque Rotterdam-based group called the Wild Wild Ambient Boys, and while I can’t assure you without having yet listened to it, I think I’m safe in assuming that it isn’t going to rock. So, no worries grouchsters.

The album, according to the press release I dug around for, was inspired by porcelain flamingos, Microsoft Office, David Hamilton and memories of horses in the late 60s!

If you’ve got your speakers set to a reasonable volume (if it’s too quiet, you’re too young!!!), it’s time to dip our toes into the NotRock genre!

This album begins with ‘Indoor Archeology’ and for maybe just a second you’re thinking it’s gonna rock, but it’s just your imagination and it doesn’t happen. Instead, we hear footsteps and a creeping ambiance of indeterminable motivation and mood. Then there are some laughs and clippy noises…

Lees verder “Yeah I Know It Sucks:”

Wild Wild Ambient Boys : We don’t rock

Review in A Closer Listen
by James Catchpole

We Don’t Rock is just what ambient music could truly be if it dared to stretch its wings – mellow, without ever being saccharine, and innovative without straying too far into the left field. Presently, the ambient music scene isn’t what you would call wild, nor does it aspire to be. You won’t see ambient music in the ring, slugging it out with rock n’ roll. Emotionally, though, ambient music can frequently eclipse the brutal power chord and the failed stage jump.

Innovative in its sound, We Don’t Rock is loose ambient. Instrumental compositions take precedence over slow burning atmospherics. Surprisingly, staccato rhythms and electronic layers push their way into the sound, but perhaps even more surprisingly the music manages to paint a pretty paradise without any kind of a drone in sight. You won’t find the routine running stream of water that leads the way not only to the forest, but to ambient predictability, and with it the chiming chorus of birdsong.

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Interview voor Motel Mozaique

Algemeen Dagblad, 3 April 2014
door Anton Slotboom

Rotterdammer Hidde van Schie maakt zich op voor Motel Mozaïque, morgen en zaterdag in zijn stad. Met zijn band Offshore brengt hij liedjes over een pittig thema dat hem de laatste tijd mateloos fascineert: het kapitalisme. ‘Met de band om me heen kan ik de Schouwburg straks wel veroveren’.

Bezoekers van Motel Mozaïque krijgen te maken met een primeur. Het album met de liedjes die Hidde van Schie met zijn band Offshore gaat spelen, wordt pas komend najaar verwacht. De kunstenaar en muzikant, opgegroeid in Rotterdam-West, speelt ze morgenavond voor het eerst voor een groot publiek. Voor Van Schie is optreden op dit tweedaagse stadsfestival een regelrechte thuiswedstrijd: hij trad er al een keer op als muzikant, overdag voor een piepklein publiek, én als beeldend kunstenaar leverde hij ook al een paar keer bijdrages. ,,Maar niet eerder stond ik zó prominent aangekondigd en dat is toch wel geweldig,’’ geeft Hidde toe.
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Wunderkammer # 83
interview by Harlan Levey

published in Agenda Magazine Brussels
9 January 2014

It’s the afternoon of Christmas eve. The rain is cold and miserable as the Anspach becomes Boulevard Lemonnier. There’s no buzzer on the door, but warm colours and worn-out guitar strings are waiting upstairs where we’ll head Offshore before following a nostalgic tune back towards a palace on the mainland.

The studio of Hidde van Schie (1978) is on the first floor and must have made for a lovely apartment in a former life. He offers to make a cup of tea, and heads into the kitchen to the left. The square room on the right is neatly decorated with completed paintings, collages, and an illustration of a slightly grotesque cowboy characterisation, which is the only sort of overtly aggressive image in the room. A small desk with a computer and drawing/painting materials sits before the fireplace, and even on a day as grey and gruesome as this, the windows grace the room with warm natural light. It’s clean, calm, and quiet enough to momentarily forget the pace of the boulevard below; so clean that it could be an exhibition space. “I moved to this new studio a week ago, and haven’t had time to make much of a mess yet. I’m here most days just before 10 am and spend eight to ten hours going back and forth between different types of projects, as well as painting, writing music, and playing guitar. The phone calls, e-mails, and administrative stuff, I do from home. The studio is a creative space for me, a place to get dirty.”

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