Their ultimate gift to us is their ability to make music that pulls away at the odd loose thread in the settled pattern of Dutch life. You won’t really notice it at first listen but they do.
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Incubate 2014 – Day 2 Friday 19/09/14
It’s interesting watching people watch a Cosmic Dead gig, too. For sure there are those who participate in the band’s hyperactive onstage frenzies. But there are many who seem to slip away in a trance, and sit or sway whilst staring into space.
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Incubate 2014 – Day 4 Sunday 21/09/14
This was a boatload of Dutch Long Hairs and Sonic Vandals brought together by the lads from Dead Neanderthals. Lined up in two banks of four they proceeded to question time itself by nailing their demands on the gates of the Underworld.
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Incubate 2014 – Day 1 Thursday 18/09/14
Given all of this multidisciplinary jostling you can see that Holly Herndon’s gigs can be some sort of well behaved battleground of the senses; something that, on this night, was made all the more compelling/confusing with her crazy visuals.
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Incubate 2014 – Day 3 Saturday 20/09/14
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Michał Jacaszek & Kwartludium – Catalogue des Arbres
Despite it being deserving of reams of text as to its making, you can just enjoy the utter sensuousness of Catalogue des Arbres.
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Vashti Bunyan – Heartleap
…you can pay attention and examine the miniscule joins and progressions in these songs or you can allow the whole thing to flow around you like some beautiful mist.
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Beginners – September Sunburn
This is the sound of the Netherlands I half-love despite my intermittent (self-loathing) raging against it; attractive and nice, decent to the core, open with its emotions, not afraid to playfully throw back all the bluster in a poppy, fun, and ultimately practical manner.
Morton Valence – Left
Hacker’s still ploughing that punk-country furrow, dipping into a fluorescent, seagull-proof binbag of influences (CSNY, Doctors of Madness, Kinks, Velvet Underground) and showing off what he pulls out to an audience in the pub.
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She Keeps Bees – Eight Houses
Eight Houses, the new LP from She Keeps Bees (aka Jessica Larrabee and Andy LaPlant is a rough, bruising record with considerable kicks.
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