Subbacultcha NL March 2013

By Sofia Ciechowska Illustration bi Basje Boer

Unruly Music Magazine March 2013

What’s Cooking

Food The Dutch Underground Issue

It’s the sound of the Dutch undergroundPage 1

THE CONVERSE ALL STAR WELL WORN COLLECTION

What’s that noise?

When we started Subbacultcha! back in 2004, our main goal was to promote the Dutch underground music scene. Much has happened since then. We went from being a local concert promoter to a multidisciplinary platform with a magazine, label and membership. And our focus became more and more international ‒ mainly because for a long time we felt that Dutch bands were simply not as good as their international counterparts. But recently things have been changing for the better. More and more Dutch bands are approaching music from an uncompromising artistic perspective and not so much as a source of entertainment for a (potentially) large audience. This we like. And so we came up with the idea of organising a festival featuring only Dutch acts. We booked no less than 22 of them, and could have easily booked more. Needles to say the Dutch underground scene is thriving and therefore must be cherished, nurtured and celebrated. So that’s exactly what we’re going to do in this issue of the magazine.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to drop by the Melkweg in Amsterdam on 21 March.

Leon Caren and Bas Morsch Page 5

Content

The Dutch Underground Issue

Samling

Nouveau Vélo

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Page 33

WOLVON

What’s the sound?

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Page 31

Art

Agenda

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Page 57

Top 5 New Music We Saw You Samling Records WOLVON What's your sound Nouveau vÉlo Featured Artist reviews Film

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10 13 18 20 26 31 33 38 42 47

A rant Fashion FOOD horoscope Agenda subbacultcha! shows other shows Free Stuff after midnight overview

48 50 52 54 57 58 67 76 77 78

JEAN-PIERRE GUERIN PRESENTEERT

SPECIALE JURYPRIJS

BENOÎT POELVOORDE ALBERT DUPONTEL

LE GRAND SOIR EEN FILM VAN BENOÎT DELÉPINE EN GUSTAVE KERVERN

VANAF 21 MAART IN DE BIOSCOOP

3g

Colophon

Who we are and what we do

Subbacultcha! magazine is made at our office in Amsterdam Da Costakade 150, 1053 XC Amsterdam, the Netherlands www.subbacultcha.nl. magazine@subbacultcha.nl We are Guest editor: Brenda Bosma Editors: Leon Caren and Bas Morsch Editorial Assistant: Megan Roberts Design: Bas Morsch and Marina Henao Interns: Phil van der Krogt, Denise Lopes, Floor Kortman, Milou Hautus, Eva Verboon Good Girl: Loes Verputten Good Guys: Keimpe Koldijk, Michiel Klein Printing: Drukkerij Gewa, Arendonk, Belgium Contributors: Anna Berkhof, Carly Blair, Basje Boer, Brenda Bosma, Leon Caren, Zofia Ciechowska, Astrid Florentinus, Julia Hendriks, Marc van der Holst, Geoff Kim, Kathrin Klingner, Bas Morsch, Carlijn Potma, Bert Scholten, Mandy Sharabani, Gert Verbeek, Isolde Woudstra and XiaoXiao Xu Distribution: Amsterdam: De Flyerman, Tessel Dekker, Sandrine Mary, Fedor Oduber, Stefan Stasko, Patrick van der Klugt, Dineke Tuinhof, Agata Bar, Charlotte van Brakel, Katharina Olson, Denis Wouters Utrecht: Freyja van den Boom, Jitske de Vries Groningen: Hedwig Plomp, Marinke Kerkhoff Den Haag: Dineke Cornelissen Rotterdam: Nahry Dougarem, Lukas Dikker, Ilse van der Spoel Leeuwarden: Jan Pier Brands Leiden: Milou Laan Haarlem: Yannick Tinbergen, Bert Zaremba Nijmegen Karin van de Kamp Tilburg/Eindhoven: Kevin Jansen Deventer: Marjolein de Vliegher Delft: Daniel Enciso Breda: Christopher Freudberg Pick up Subbacultcha! magazine here (among 500 other places): Amsterdam: Kriterion, EYE, Canvas, American Apparel, Episode, CREA, De Balie, Melkweg, Paradiso, OT301, De Nieuwe Anita, Restored, Zipper, Concerto Utrecht: Ekko, ’t Hoogt, Tivoli, The Village, Revenge, Plato, dB’s Rotterdam: Worm, TENT, Rotown, Lantaren Venster, De Witte Aap, Willem de Kooning Academie If you want your bar, venue, store or business to be on the distribution list, please send us an email.

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Cover: Drawing by Astrid Florentinus Page 8

Top 5

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Last month at our office

Graphic Novel: The Photographer

This unique collaboration between French illustrators Emmanuel Guibert and Frédéric Lemercier and the (late) war photographer Didier Lefèvre tells the story of a Doctors Without Borders mission in Afghanistan during the Soviet Occupation in the 1980s. The combination of the illustrated narrative and the real-life photography gives a unique and compelling insight into the everyday reality of war.

2

Documentary: Searching for Sugar Man

Thoroughly entertaining feel-good documentary about American Folk singer Rodriquez making it big in South Africa without knowing anything about it. Go see it!

3

City: Santiago, Chile

Sacred Bones has recently released new albums by The Holy Drug Couple and Föllakzoid, two great bands from Santiago, Chile (yes, that’s right, Chile). Föllakzoid especially has been on heavy rotation here at the office, loud and groovy drone/krautrock that totally gets us in the zone.

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Dutch Underground: Vakantie

Rotterdam-based label Samling Recordings has a way of wrapping you up in their comforting sounds. The upcoming release by improv duo Vakantie will set quite a different mood, though. Their synthesizer-fused hardcore tunes promise to knock you straight out of your snuggie. We like!

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Food: Fries at Cido, Westerpark, Amsterdam

The always-smiling owner peels the potatoes, chops them into fries with an antique machine and fries them crisp and golden to absolute perfection. Snack heaven!

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bouwkunst

Open dagen www.ahk.nl

Academie voor Beeldende Vorming Academie van Bouwkunst Conservatorium van Amsterdam Nederlandse Film en Televisie Academie Reinwardt Academie de Theaterschool Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten

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This month’s recommendations

New Music

For this issue revolving around the vibrant dutch underground scene, we changed the format of our New Music section and asked several Dutch musicians to reply to the following question:

What have you been listening to lately?

‘The ending of the song “Feed Me With Your Kiss” by My Bloody Valentine, where they do this counting up. The first time they bang on this chord four times; the next time five and so on, until it’s ten times, which is the end. This song is so powerful and I think that ending is really funny and cool.’

(Niek Leenders – Nouveau Vélo) ‘The self-titled debut 12" by Raajmahal is on infinite repeat here; it keeps resonating in my head long after the last tone has died out. Listening to this record feels like lying on a stone floor in a huge ancient temple while a sound of hallowed beauty from the next room is leaking in a puff of eternal reverb.’

(Keimpe Koldijk – Mike Koldin) ‘‘I listen to the jibber of my little boy (almost three months old). Some of his sounds are repeated more often and seem like words already. For instance: “Ammam” (when hungry) or “Errol” (state of grace). He is like a parrot talking backwards, how strange. Oh well, together we listen to a lot of SixPage 13

Find more about our new Find outout more about our new

Cross-MediaProgram Program Cross-Media

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What have you been listening to lately?

New Music

ties pop and we especially like it when they play stuff backwards. And then all of a sudden he says, “Eklnnn!” That’s my boy! Say it again! Yes, we’ve been listening to some Eklin tapes. I’ve seen their brand new set in Groningen and I’m really looking forward to seeing them again. Patience, my boy.’

(Jan-Pieter van Weel – Spilt Milk) ‘The silence of winter is being filled with the call of birds, letting us know spring is to come. I am letting all these sounds really get inside of me, by standing very still and concentrating. One call is very high and clear, then there is the tick-tick-ticking of a woodpecker, the rough call of a crow and many more. And this is just Kralingse Bos in Rotterdam on a sunny Thursday morning. Can you imagine what it must sound like in the rainforest?

It is unbelievably beautiful.’

(Leontien Herkelman // Eklin) ‘‘Recently, my soul took a bungee jump out of my body for 15 minutes into what I would describe as the non-physical source that I come from. I’ll skip the travelogue. When I was thrown back, I remembered physicality as a sound, a hum, a tone, a drone, which became so dense that at a certain point it was no longer a sound but my body.’

(Rik Möhlmann – Vakantie) ‘I’ve been listening to the third album by Portishead for over a year now and it never bores me.

After seeing Beak> at Le Guess Who? last year, I’m more convinced than ever that these guys are some of the most talented musicians around.’

(Arnold van de Velde – Eklin/Bismuth) Page 15

New Music

What have you been listening to lately?

‘Wonder Stone of the World, the latest record by Alasdair Roberts & Friends. It’s terrific, sounds like his version of English folk rock, with a Scottish accent and even a touch of New Orleans here and there. His best in years, if you ask me. Will somebody please get him to the Netherlands?’

(Leo Fabriek – Mere Duo) ‘The album that I’ve been drowning and droning into the last couple of months is Mirrorring’s Foreign Body. Good for those heartbroken reflective positive melancholia days. Mirrorring is the beautiful combination of Tiny Vipers and Grouper.

(Shane Burmania – Spilt Milk) ‘If not overruled by screeching car tyres, people yelling in their phone, the latest volkszanger or police sirens, I have the sound of miniature glaciers accompanying me in my workspace. At first I thought the ceiling was coming down, but eventually I noticed that it was created by big piles of snow and ice sliding down the internal drainpipe in the room. It amplified the sound: a long almost inaudible cracking at first, followed by a loud bang.’

(Wouter Venema – Mike Koldin) ‘I continuously listen to Tame Impala’s Lonerism.

Kevin Parker`s beautiful voice, the “Beatlesque” harmonies and a mother-load of reverb underneath and on top of it take me back to the good old days. Lonerism taught me that neurotic drumming can be awesome. Groovy basslines, synths drowning in FX and of course the Roland Space Echo make this, in my opinion, an exceptional album.’

(Ben Wennekers – Vox Von Braun) Page 16

This Months recommendations

New Music

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We Saw You

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Spotted at Subbacultcha!

Photo by Anna Berkhof

How low can you go? We are the absolute limbo kid kings. Back-breaking pre-teen acrobats performing our spellbinding trick night after night for your entertainment.

Marijn Westerlaken and Teun Heijmans (Those Foreign Kids) spotted at the Hundebiss Records Showcase in OCCII, Amsterdam on 13 February 2013

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Features

The Dutch Underground Issue

Every few weeks the boys behind Dutch record label Samling Recordings get together to discuss upcoming releases. Their expanding catalogue is characterized not so much by genre but rather by an indefinable atmosphere. We joined the four friends – who are also active in Herrek, Mike Koldin and Luik – at their headquarters in Rotterdam and tried to find out more about the Samling sound Interview by Brenda Bosma. Photos by Xiao Xiao Xu. The photo of Lukas Dikker was made by Merel Visser

What were the reasons for starting a label together?

Lukas: ‘A few years ago we organised so called “Kats” evenings in Leeuwarden, the city where we all studied, and later continued in a living room in Utrecht. We played there ourselves, asked friends to perform, recorded the show and burned CD copies which we sold afterwards. In June 2010 as a result of that, Samling was born. It coincided with the release of the LUIK EP.’ Gerrit: ‘There was so much going on in our circle of friends; side projects, interesting collaborations.We realised we all had the same taste in Page 20

music and wanted to give that a place.’

Keimpe: ‘In Frisian “Samling” means collective. That exactly describes what we are.’

Lucas: ‘There’s also this scene from a movie where someone shouts “Samling!” In the subtitles it reads ‘“truth”. I looked it up, unfortunately it was translated wrong.’

Wouter: “That’s from Offret by Tarkovski.’

Would you consider yourselves as guardians of a certain sound?

Wouter: ‘I consider Samling more as a snapshot of a certain period of time.’

Features

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Features

Samling

‘I guess what it all boils down to is that you share a certain feeling’

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The Dutch Underground Issue

Features

Clockwise from top left: Gerrit van der Scheer, Keimpe Koldijk, Lukas Dikker and Wouter Venema, Page 23

Features

Samling

Lukas: ‘For me personally it is that, protecting that. We all operate in the same area and we want to show and archive that, but to say something else about it, is difficult. In the meantime, we have also asked like-minded people, not necessarily from our group, to release their music via Samling. Those collaborations broaden the circle. It’s all about a personal and musical connection.’

Can this connection be captured in words or a kind of manifesto, maybe?

Keimpe: ‘This is something we ask ourselves almost every time, but I guess the rules keep being stretched.’

Wouter: ‘There is no manifesto.

The album by Vakantie, our next release, for instance, is very vibrant and raw, it will be the odd one out in our catalogue, but that’s not important.

Foremost it’s about the vibe.’

Lukas: ‘We don’t want to focus on polished music. To us it’s about a certain spontaneity and freshness. To show the process of making something in a short span of time and capture that energy on record, that’s what we’re interested in.’

Where does the preference for this type of music ‒ let’s call it comforting and atmospheric ‒ come from? You seem Page 24

to have built your own little island in Rotterdam.

Wouter: ‘We simply share this collective thing. There’s also a lot of stuff that you help each other with, that keeps the circle intact.’

Keimpe: ‘We just do what we do, because we enjoy it, because it’s fun.

It’s almost frustrating. I’d love to have some philosophical theories and fancy words to say about it, but we don’t.

I guess we can safely say we lean heavily on intuition.’

Not only do you have a specific sound, but also an aesthetic very much your own. There’s a certain unity there. Do you direct that in any way?

Wouter: ‘In the beginning I only used black and white for all the artwork. Then Thijs from I Am Oak used lots of colours for his own release.’

Keimpe: ‘Wouter is very good at emphasising an atmosphere. Those little eyes from the Bonne Aparte artwork. That’s like a trademark.’

Wouter: ‘I just did what I was already doing and used it for Samling.’

Gerrit: ‘I guess what it all boils down to is that you share a certain feeling.’

Wouter: ‘It’s interesting to know what that feeling is, but I can’t seem to put it into words.’

The Dutch Underground Issue

Features

'We built a space cave in Utrecht, transformed a prison into a forest.'

Keimpe: ‘Every time it’s this cha- that and put them on every release.’

Keimpe: ‘We organised a few Lukas: ‘Yesterday I saw an item showcases for several festivals like Le about the ADM [squated area in Mini Who? and Explore the North.

Amsterdam] on TV. It focused on We built a space cave in Utrecht, the social aspect of the free state. The transformed a prison into a forest.’

Lukas: ‘Within the context of people living next to it are not allowed within the confinements of the a festival we are willing to do somelittle society. When the ADM people thing special like that.’

Gerrit: ‘But to do it from scratch were asked about their rules, they said would be too much responsibility and they didn’t have any.’

Keimpe: ‘That’s it! We need a take too much time.’

Keimpe: ‘We don’t promote our manifesto!’ stuff very extensively. We have a website and that’s basically it.’

Any big plans for the future?

Lukas: ‘We’re so underground!’

Gerrit: ‘There’s no plan to do something big.’

For more information about Samling and Wouter: ‘There’s only limited their releases visit www.samlingrecordings. ambition. We should print stickers of com os.’

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Features

The Dutch Underground Issue

WOLVON

WOLVON are three dudes with three beards from Groningen ‒ or Broningen, as they call it. Ike, Bram and Ruben do not shy away from bribing border officials in the Balkans and combing burger sauce out of their facial hair.

They’re getting their ‘wolf on’ all right Interview by Zofia Ciechowska. Photos by Julia Hendriks

Are you secretly werewolves or is WOLVON just a reference to your big wolf beards?

Ike: ‘WOLVON actually comes from my third book that I never finished. I had this great idea to write a novel before my 23rd birthday...

I wrote the first three pages. It was about this sea cow that lived with some wolves in the desert. I changed all the vowels in this novel to Os, so from the Dutch wolven, we got WOLVON.’ How did it all start?

Ike: ‘Way back in ’95 during the war.’

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Bram: ‘In the cafeteria at the University of Groningen, we had a coffee together. We took the same classes. We were young and naive and we thought we’d be nice companions.

We didn’t have beards then, except for Ruben.’

Ike: ‘Yeah, Bram and I would always meet up and say, “Hey, we should start a band” and then we wouldn’t and then we’d meet up and be like, “So hey, I’m in this band” and be like, “Okay,” and then after a really long time of this going back and forth we finally started our band. Then we asked Ruben to play bass for us. We

Features

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Features

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WOLVON

The Dutch Underground Issue

Features

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Features

WOLVON

‘It’s more of a DIY scene than an underground scene. We don’t try to be obscure.’ only asked because he had a good rehearsal space and his girlfriend had a bass guitar; that also helped.’

Where’s your music taken you so far?

Ike: ‘It’s taken us to Belgrade, Mitrovica and Skopje last summer when we went on tour. It also took us to Bosnia and Herzegovina but that REALLY didn’t work out. We went on tour with this band called Neon Rainbows and we were supposed to play at a festival that was in a fortress on a mountain. It took us two days to drive there, which also included the bribery of some crazy officer on the Croatian border. So we dragged all our shit up the mountain to the fortress and on to the stage. Neon Rainbows were on before us and just after they started playing the singer got electrocuted by the mic. The dude passed out and bit his tongue, there was blood everywhere and he had to go to a Bosnian hospital. The festival got shut down.’

Bram: ‘We’re happy we were playing second.’

How deep is the Dutch underground for you guys?

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Ruben: ‘Not very deep, it’s pretty wide though. There’s no underground scene for one particular genre; instead it extends from singer-songwriters to noise rock, just people who like to help each other out. It’s more of a DIY scene than an underground scene. We don’t try to be obscure.’

Bram: ‘Yeah, maybe the difference is that being underground is a choice, whereas DIY is a necessity. At our level you can’t make a living out of playing gigs, but we still want to have a good time and play music so we just do it ourselves.’

Ike: ‘I don’t see the Dutch underground as an underground, we all try to get some recognition, but we don’t particularly fit into any sort of mainstream music so we just float around the alternative circuit and that’s it.

We’ve been putting on shows as Lepel Concerts in Groningen for a few years now for people that we know.

That’s our little piece of the Dutch underground.’

WOLVON will release their debut album on 25 April on Subroutine Records.

Illustrations

by Bert Scholten One The Dutch question Underground interviews Issue

Features

What’s the sound of your underground?

HERREK ‘The roaring machines at the packaging centre where I work to earn a little money is my sound of the underground. When I start the engine of one of those cars the radio often blows my hair back, playing some popular Justin Bieber song at volume ten because someone left the car that way before I unsuspectingly took the keys. I can’t stand that feeling like you are being violated. Besides that, there are a lot of sounds that I choose to hear. I currently chose to start listening to the sounds of the village in Papua where I grew up and let them inspire me while working on our new album. For instance, the sound of a canoe gently gliding through still water. It’s funny that sound is only vibration in the air, but can be captured in your brain for years.’

H-SIK ‘The sound of the underground for me is represented by the research of audio texture and a primitive chord of evolution space. A perfect focus on sequence which is represented by a respectful and connected, undefined melody. Underground for me means the territory of experimentation, a field where freedom is powerful and stimulated by nature, when intelligence serves the spontaneity of your inspiration and vice versa. The sound of my underground is something unexpected, triggered and progressive.’

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Features

One question interviews

What’s the sound of your underground?

SPILT MILK ‘If there’s a band playing in the Dutch underground and there’s no one around to hear them, do they still make a sound? They play so quiet, you can hear the passing traffic. And the cars buzz by, and the wind blows. And I may walk past, and I may not. And someone may notice, or it may all slide right by. And you may love me, or you may not love me at all any more. But the sun will shine on Holland in the spring. And God will watch over the members of the orchestra for me with all his available energies. Yeah yeah.’

BODY II BODY ‘In a perfect world, I would have something witty to say about what is the underground. In a perfect world I would be able to jump over a canyon in my sports car. IRL I don’t have much inspiration or a driver’s licence.’

KLEININDUSTRIE ‘We play of our sound is Hardwire on always on is Freeze is infinite sustain I mean really really infinite is Bad Monkey got it from willem very cheap is Xotic bluesbreaker no blues is Boss OC3 left in front is Nanoswitch AB A goes to nowhere.’ [Editor’s note: we have no idea what this means, either.]

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The Dutch Underground Issue

Features

Nouveau Vélo Nouveau Vélo is producing exciting pop songs with the right edge, the right hooks and the right amount of dissonance and reverb to be labelled ‘actually really good!’ And hey! the boys hail from Helmond, even better. With outskirt-roots like that and an EP titled Moestuin – the predecessor to their upcoming release Daze - we felt they were the ultimate band to take to the cold, cold ground of the Dutch underground. Photographer Isolde Woudstra accompanied them Read the interview online. Photos by Isolde Woudstra Page 33

Features

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Nouveau VĂŠlo

The Dutch Underground Issue

Features

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Features

One question interviews

What’s the sound of your underground?

SPACE SIREN ‘To us, the sound of our ultimate Dutch underground is the guys from Subroutine Records together with Richard James Foster from Incendiary Magazine in a crawl space.’

NOUVEAU VÉLO ‘The harsh buzz of the irrigation system located in the corner of our rehearsal space, in the basement of the garden shed of our drummer’s parents. Having this wonderful underground shelter for ourselves is perfect, but the crops need their water so once in a while the machine starts shrieking. Nevertheless, for our latest recordings we ascended to a first-floor apartment in de Bijlmer, and ended up doing vocals in our personal irrigation system (the shower).’

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The The Dutch dutch underground Underground Issue Issue

Features

What’s the sound of your underground?

APRIL ‘It’s fun to go to, and every band has a rattling van pulled by a unicorn with a nosebag full of saffron, pedalling a golden bicycle.’

VOX VON BRAUN ‘That would be the sound of distant sleigh bells and the engines of ships, far far away, making absolutely sure you can’t really tell what it is you’re listening to, but for some reason you can hear music in it.’

MIKE KOLDIN ‘Beneath the cities that lay buried under the ashes, traces of even older cities were found, in their turn buried in a further past. Its inhabitants had built over the layers of ashes covering the previous city. Thus, layers of cities came into being; streets submerged beneath streets, crossings below crossings; the city alive built on top of cities sleeping.’

Jean-Marie Guyau Page 37

Art

Featured artist

Astrid Florentinus

Astrid Florentinus (1987) is an artist living and working in Groningen. She self-publishes booklets, makes drawings and produces posters and illustrations for several cultural institutions. Her sensitive and translucent work radiates a comforting sort of melancholy. Encompassing ‘Weltschmerz’, hope, desolation, love and despair, Astrid creates a uniquely enstranging, almost Lynchian world with simple elements such as houses, trees and mountains. Currently she is coordinating a special book project for Extrapool in Nijmegen. www.astridflorentinus.com

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Art

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Art

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Astrid Florentinus

Featured artist

Art

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Music Reviews

New releases worth your while

By Carly Blair

Purling Hiss Water on Mars

Suuns Images du Futur

Philadelphia’s Mike Polizze played with jam-punks Birds of Maya before setting off on a solo mission to Planet Purling Hiss, a world where all previously recorded traces of the existence of guitars were so corroded by exposure to harsh elements, they only vaguely resembled their earthly equivalents. After years of making music in the otherwise uninhabited world of his home recording studio, Polizze recruited a team of rock ’n’ roll rovers to help him explore a new garage rock galaxy, and Purling Hiss’ fourth album documents what they found. The great tunes that always seemed to be lurking under the scuzzy surface are now polished of their previous grime, revealing themselves to be teeming with life, and if you’re an Earthling like me, extended exposure to Water on Mars’s atmosphere will likely leave you breathless.

The cover of Suuns’ sophomore album, Images du Futur, depicts an androgynous woman with a neutral facial expression, the contours of her face so soft around the edges she almost looks like a painting. The image is actually made of several copies of the same photograph, torn and layered atop one another in progressively larger pieces. At the bottom of these layers there’s presumably the image of the woman, and behind that image there’s the woman herself, but even if you could get to the bottom of it she’d remain a mystery. Perhaps the point of these images of the future is that it remains uncertain and the band anticipates it with neither anxiety nor hope. If the soundtrack to getting there consists of this kind of patient, groovy and evocative (albeit emotionally inert) prog rock, I’d be pretty content.

(Drag City)

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(Secretly Canadian)

Music Reviews

Phosphorescent Muchacho

Nosaj Thing Home

Like a little woodland creature seeking a warm place to hibernate for the winter, the contemplative Americana of Matthew Houck’s early work as Phosphorescent burrowed its way through the icy outer layers into a special place in my heart.

2009’s To Willie found Houck and his newly acquired backing band sounding uncharacteristically traditional and loose, while its raucous follow-up, Here’s to Taking It Easy, had me worried that Houck had resigned himself to becoming a drunkenly insouciant lout. With twinkling, hymnal ‘Sun, Arise!’, Muchacho’s opening track, I’m instantly reassured, as that little creature emerges from his slumber, revealing himself over the course of the album to be grander sounding than ever, but no less capable of comforting or in need of a listener to comfort him.

LA’s Jason Chung was a band geek before a hip hop-loving bus driver, some bootlegged audioediting software and productive friendships with Daedelus and Flying Lotus shaped him into the hip hop and dubstep-influenced IDM whizz he is today.

His 2009 debut, Drift, found him floating on a cold and choppy sea of glitch hop, but after a four-year hiatus we find Chung settled into a very different place and ready to share a new world with us. The crisp sounds on Home’s eponymous opening track almost resemble the tossing up of sheets and the sweeping of floors, as though Chung was just finishing tidying up in anticipation of the listener’s arrival. Once you’ve crossed the threshold, Home reveals itself to be as painstakingly crafted as its predecessor, but filled with a sheltered sense of calm and welcome warmth.

(Dead Oceans)

(Innovative Leisure)

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Music Reviews

continued

Doldrums Lesser Evil

Pien Feith Tough Love

Montreal musician Airick Woodhead chose the name Doldrums as tribute to the children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth. In the book, a bored little boy is transported to a magical kingdom, where he undergoes various misadventures on his mission to rescue its rulers, Princess Rhyme and Princess Reason.

His is one of the most apt band names I’ve encountered, since Woodhead is nothing if not a mischievous little imp whose panicky vocals navigate their way through a wonderland of chopped-up samples and psychedelic electronics, momentarily grasping then losing their grip on pop melodies. When first listening to his proper debut, Lesser Evil, you might find yourself instinctively instructing him to calm down and play by the rules, not realising he’s the one who’s ultimately going to rescue YOU.

Amsterdam’s Pien Feith records under her own name and has worked with Neonbelle and The Very Sexuals. Much of her early work was stripped-down, emotionally bare folk music, but over time she’s collected band members and incorporated more electronic elements into her sound. Her new album is entitled Tough Love and though the phrase means treating someone you love harshly in order to ultimately help them, it isn’t a dramatic departure from the slick electronic pop of 2011’s Dance On Time. On opener ‘The Highway’ she asks, ‘Won’t you drive me? I want you to drive me.’ She might as well be regarding the rest of the stage, since the most successful tracks aren’t the ones where she’s in control, but rather the ones where she’s sitting shotgun, propelled forward by her able backing band and simply enjoying the ride.

(Arbutus)

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(V2)

july03-072013

proudly presents

The Irrepressibles sat jul 06

t h g i r w n i a Rufus W More artists to be announced! muziekgebouweindhoven.nl

sun jul 07

99 Problems and the Bitch... knows the anwser

By Brenda Bosma Illustration by Martyn F Overweel presented by

JUNE 21-22-23 2013

FESTIVAL BEEKSE BERGEN HILVARENBEEK

Arctic Monkeys sigur r贸s PortisheAd Belle & seBAstiAn Alt-J two door cineMA cluB Agnes Obel MOdest MOuse the MAccAbees tyler, the creAtOr swAns efterklAng bAlthAzAr MAckleMOre & ryAn lewis Ofei swiM deep wAve MAchines splAshh french filMs thOMAs Azier indiAns nO Age the histOry Of Apple pie MOzes And the firstbOrn MikhAel pAskAlev skAters teMples cAshMere cAt Another 25+ Artists to be Announced weekend ticket 99 euro ex. service fees dAY tickets Also AvAilABle cAMPinG ticket 19 euro www.BestkePtsecret.nl

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By Gert Verbeek and Basje Boer

Film

New films and DVDs

Le Grand Soir

(Benoît Delépine / Gustave Kervern)

The Woodsman and the Rain (Shûichi Okita, 2011)

Like Matt Lucas is ‘the only gay in the village’ (that’s a Little Britain reference, people), Not (the excellent Benoît Poelvoorde) is the only punk who survived the ’80s. He and his dog hang around the sad shopping boulevard in a French noman’s-land where his parents own a potato restaurant and his brother, Jean Pierre, has a rather depressing job selling mattresses. An outsider might think Jean Pierre’s got it made: he’s got a family, a respectable job.

But this is the anarchistic universe of Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern, who have displayed an absurdist, Kaurismäki type of humour since their debut, Aaltra. So obviously the homeless, unemployed Not is Le Grand Soir’s hero, and he’s about to show his brother the true meaning of freedom. (BB) In theatres 21 March. Pre-release at Melkweg Cinema on 15 March

Katsuhiko (Kôji Yakusho) spends his days cutting trees, mourning his deceased wife and having a hard time dealing with his adolescent son. In the forest he meets young and insecure director Koichi (Shun Oguri), who’s shooting a cheap zombie flick. Reluctantly Katsuhiko helps him find locations. Before sunset he’s an extra as one of the zombies. Katsuhiko gets more excited about the project, gradually coming out of his cocoon and helping Koichi get out of his. The Woodsman and the Rain is a subtle, slow-paced comedy about dealing with traumatic events. The movie is not only about personal tragedy, but also an oddly moving metaphor about national trauma and a country coming to terms with past disasters. Zombies make people feel alive again. (GV) Out now on import DVD Page 47

Page 48

I just watched Vox Von Braun perform on Dutch national television. Well, I watched them the day after, on my laptop, but, you know. They played for only one minute, on you probably know what godawful piece-of-shit-of-ashow I’m talking about, and they were really good.

They managed to condense a lot of their awesomeness into that fucking minute, and their awesome lead guitarist even got to do a little bit of awesome soloing by the end of their allotted time.

tle boys from us freaks and weirdos, let’s finally get to our main objective here: what is the sound of the Dutch underground? Well, what seems to unify most of the acts of the ‘Dutch underground’ (‘underground’ AD 2013 being a term I have a whole lot of problems with ‒ I really don’t wanna get into here, or maybe just this: the internet killed the notion of anything being anything ‘underground’, for better and/or worse. Discuss) is not so much a ‘sound’, but rather a reluctance to play

We asked monthly book contributor and Spilt Milk guitarist/songwriter and oh-so-much-more, Marc van der Holst to – instead of writing his literature column – shine his light on the Dutch underground. Read it and weep

Not the sound of yawn-inducing semi-corporate indie-schmindie

Instead of ‘Books’: a Rant

Still, sumtin’ was clearly off. by those rules any more.

How did these weirdos slip Sure, we’ll appear on your through the cracks? Well, stupid little shows, anythey got ‘lucky’, I guess. thing to make Mum and Their new record (which, Dad proud (plus, anything though really good, I find for free drinks); just don’t somewhat easier to piexpect us to take any of geonhole than their debut, this seriously. We’re calling something which somebullshit.

By Marc van der Holst how seems noteworthy So, hey, children, what’s our Illustration by Geoff Kim here, so here you go: notsound? To ask the quesed), despite not being retion is to answer it. It’s. leased by a record-labelOur. Sound. Not the sound whose-name-I-shall-not-name, got picked up by a of yawn-inducing semi-corporate indie-schmindfew journalists, one of whom writes for De Volksk- ie, not the sound of imitating or implementing the rant, a favourable review in said (piece-of-shit-of- sounds (and looks, for fuck’s sake) of last year’s Ana) newspaper being a must if you wanna have any- glo-Saxon young hopefuls. Not the sound of amthing resembling ‘success’ in Holland... The next bition, save for the ambition to have no ambition. step usually being appearing on aforementioned A sound defined by negation, they’ll say. They’re piece-of-shit-of-a-show, and maybe on some even- wrong. We are free. We are free to do what we wanworse-piece-of-shit-of-a-show on public radio. na do. We’re gonna get loaded. We’re gonna have a Like, around three minutes past midnight. Oh, and good time. That’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna you’ll get treated like a piece of shit, too, and no have a good time. We’re gonna have a party. See you money. Feelin’ lucky, punk? in the Melkweg on the 21st of March.

Well, maybe you do. Good for you. Tell them I said lol. Or, rather, fuck you. And fuck you, too, then.

Next month Mark’s back with a new book And so, now that we’ve separated the boring litcolumn called ‘Rock ’n’ Roll’ Library.

Instead of ‘Books’: a Rant

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Fashion

€15 outfit

By Mandy Sharabani

Every month we give €15 to someone to compose a complete outfit for a good night out. Yes, quite a challenge.

This month Herrek’s keyboardist Ilse Hamelink, a former student of music therapy, is shopping for her own on-stage outfit.

Tell us about your search... room where they can buy items It begins with me and my for a small price. At the time I Dad biking through Middelburg. felt bad about buying the shoes but I was tempted since they Ha! So your dad became your per- were only €0,75 and matched my outfit... and my budget! sonal fashion stylist?

Well... he tried! Since I had a braid in my hair he kept on showing me these hippie dresses, Shirt - €5,00 but it wasn’t really the direction Hart & Ziel, Middelburg I was going for. Instead I found a beautiful black blouse for €5. I Scarf - €1 especially liked the fabric.

Schroeder, Den Haag Nice find! And then?

I figured I needed some colour in my outfit so I bought this scarf for €1 although it belonged to a Hindi dress (so, I needed to separate them). I also wanted some colourful accessories so I bought this bracelet and ring from a woman in a small and dusty Indian crafts store.

Stockings - €0,50 Lotus, Middelburg Shoes - €0,75 From her work at the shelter Bracelet - €3 Ring - €4 De Kledij, Middelburg

And what about the shoes?

Wanna go shopping for a €15 I work in a place for the outfit? Please send an email to homeless and we have a clothing fashion@subbacultcha.nl.

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Photos by Isolde Woudstra

Fashion

â‚Ź15 Outfit

Ilse Hamelink dressing up to go play with Herrek at the Sound of the Dutch Underground in Melkweg.

Budget spent: â‚Ź14.50 Page 51

Food

Cooking with...

By Zofia Ciechowska

Vakantie

What does your music taste of ?

‘Our music tastes of lemon and sambal. Sometimes it’s really soft, like ice cream. Actually, it’s a lemon sorbet with sambal. But it’s also crunchy, it has nuts in it.’

Do you have any good holiday food memories from when you were younger?

Gijs: ‘I don’t like vakanties. I had a great cheese soufflé in Hungary. I also had some green beans with fried breadcrumbs on top made for me by a Polish grandmother.’

Rik: ‘I always got stomach aches on holiday as a kid. Once I had a delicious tomato in Turkey. It Page 52

was the biggest, reddest, freshest tomato I have ever eaten. You could tell it was grown in the sun, not like a Dutch tomato.’

What are your kitchens like?

Gijs: ‘My kitchen looks like it’s from Brugman Keukens. I like cooking pad Thai in it.’

Rik: ‘I live in an anti-squat in a school and our kitchen is in a classroom. We have a big table and basic running water, that’s it.

I don’t really cook, I just put all my food on the big table and assemble meals out of it. I eat a lot of raw stuff, like avocados, but not fanatically. I also like making weed ice cream, for medicinal purposes.’

Food

Photo by Carlijn Potma

Vakantie’s pad Thai and weed ice cream PAD THAI

WEED ICE CREAM

125g flat wide rice noodles 2 limes sambal 4 spring onions 150g beansprouts 2 tsp light muscovado sugar 2 tbsp fish sauce 2 tbsp oil 200g prawns 25g chopped peanuts fresh coriander

25g butter 530ml single cream 75g sugar pinch of salt 10g crushed bud (or just use your own judgment) 425g ripe bananas 3 tablespoons rum 5 tablespoons honey cinnamon

• Put the noodles in a bowl of boiling water and leave them until they go soft. Drain and rinse once ready.

• Mix the lime juice, sambal, sugar and fish sauce in a small bowl, set aside.

• Heat some oil in a wok, add the prawns, cook for a minute or two and add the spring onion and cooked noodles. Splash with your fancy sauce, chuck in the beansprouts, add half of the nuts and coriander, heat for another minute and dish up. Serve with more nuts, coriander and lime and some more sambal.

• Gently heat the cream in a pot, don’t let it boil though.

• Melt the butter with the sugar and salt in a separate pot. Crumble the weed into the butter and stir well. Add the heated cream to the butter and whisk away.

• Mash your bananas in a bowl.

Add the cream, rum, honey and cinnamon and beat until smooth.

• Pour the mixture into a plastic container. Cover it and freeze it for a few hours until it turns slushy.

Scoop it out into a bowl, whisk it again until it is smooth and transfer it back into its container, cover it and freeze it until it turns into ice cream. Take out of the freezer about ten minutes before serving.

Vakantie will release their new album Fotonen on 21 March via Samling Recordings.

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Horoscope Aries

21 March­–20 April

By Brenda Bosma

Leo

23 July–22 Aug

Your obligations are starting to irritate your ulcer. Responsibilities give you a rash. As you catch your dad playing air guitar in the living room you shake your head.

The adult life is so not your cup of tea this month.

‘Don’t be sad, I still feel warmth for you,’ you say to your heartbroken lover, after which you place your ice-cold hand on his/her shoulder.

Taurus

You have an unironic but generally gloomy outlook on the universe in general. You love fluffy animals, but they too will die and, even worse, leave their fluff all over your clean floor.

21 April–21 May

All is good and steady this month for our leisure-loving connoisseurs. You know your way around the labyrinth of life. It even seems you have found that special corner. Leisurely love is in the air!

GEMINI

22 May–21 June

You are bored easily and lose your focus on the nittygritty. Well, at least you’ve got your imagination to fall back on. You imagine you are someone else this month.

Cancer

22 June–22 July

When you walk past the table, you accidentally tip over the ashtray. Miraculously, the ashtray lands on the ground with all the butts still in it. You start making a lot of open peanut butter sandwiches. You feel lucky.

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VIRGO

23 Aug–22 Sept

libra

23 Sept–22 Oct

You look at a Facebook post by your ex-lover. It’s so thoughtfully funny. You giggle, but a moment later you’re crying in the corner of your badly-lit bedroom. A ‘like’ that cannot ever be a love. A modern tragedy.

SCORPIO

23 Oct–21 Nov

A wild but meaningful night it will be. You’ll be dragged out of the club like a boneless Christ.

The next morning you won’t remember a thing, but there’ll be pictures on the internet, so it must be true. As you try to wash your face, you notice three hickeys on your neck. You hear a rooster crow.

Illustrations by Kathrin Klingner

Horoscope

Sagittarius

22 Nov–21 Dec

You know that thing that megalomaniac fucks do with their fingers when they want to get the waiter’s attention? Yes? Well, just like that your now ex-lover went from totally empathetic, funny and all-round amazing into stone-cold distant. It may feel like you must survive this. We’re both sad and happy to tell you, that is true.

Pisces

20 February–20 March

capricorn

22 Dec–20 Jan

Look at your face! It has what might just be an eternal smile on it. Did you really complete that elaborate task that a normal human being can only check off by reincarnating as Superman?

Certain people, you think, somehow don’t know how to feel, much less love, to say nothing of respect. We’re just bodies to you. Bodies and shoulders to lean on, bellies to pinch and punch, Aquarius scarred knees to kick at some 21 Jan-19 Feb more. We are present, but is has You always seem to find that dry spot underneath a dripping almost ceased to mean. Furniture pine tree when it’s raining like hell of your world, that’s what we are. and you’ve lost your way in a forest. What kind of furniture am I? You feel loved by an invisible omni- Most probably the scratched leg presence this month. of a side table, with positioned next to it the deceased culprit, Russell the Rottweiler, badly stuffed by an amateur taxidermist and now falling over nine times out of ten. May the poor dog scratch in peace.

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Agenda

Shows in March

BINNENKORT O.A. ZA02MRT

DO21FEB

A DRIAN C ROW LEY + BROEDER DIELEMAN

D A N D E A C ON

VR22FEB

PISSING IN THE WIND

BRNS + DAUWD + SKY CASTLES

VR08MRT

S KIP & DI E

ZA16MRT

F LYING HOR SEMAN + BLACKIE & THE OOHOOS

ZA23FEB

APRIL 7" RELEASE PARTY O.A. BODYPOLITICS + KIDS WITH GUNS + RATS ON RAFTS DJ-SET + RAVAGE! RAVAGE! DJ-SET

DO21MRT

SX

VR01MRT

TAPED

ZA30MRT

O.A. MERCURY + WILLIAM KOUAM DJOKO + MIKE MAGO

BASKERVILLE

+ FATHER SCULPTOR

VOLLEDIG PROGRAMMA & TIJDEN:

POPPODIUM EKKO | BEMUURDE WEERD WZ 3 | 3513 BH UTRECHT | WWW.EKKO.NL Page 56

Agenda On the following pages:

Subbacultcha! concerts and films totally free for members Page 58

Other shows Page 67 Free tickets Page 76

This image is portraying Holly Herndon. Holly is playing on 27 March in OT301, Amsterdam and on 28 March in WORM, Rotterdam. Both shows are free for Subbacultcha! members.

See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.

Iceage

06 March - AreaFiftyOne, Eindhoven 20.00 | €10 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

This young Danish band comes out of a lively punk scene in Copenhagen which also includes bands like Lower, VÅR and Hand of Dust. In spite of the competition, the refreshing mix of hardcore, goth and post-punk and the undeniable energy displayed on their precocious 2011 debut, New Brigade, had some singling them out as the saviours of punk rock. You’re Nothing is its follow-up, and in spite of the implied indifference of the title, it actually finds them sounding more emotionally raw and vulnerable than ever.

Chad Valley

07 March - Tivoli Spiegelbar, Utrecht 20.30 | €7 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

Coincidentally or not, a great many of the artists initially tagged as chillwave, such as Toro y Moi, Ducktails and Washed Out, have ended up following a similar trajectory away from the use of hazy soundscapes and buried vocals towards more traditional pop-song structures. Oxford native Hugo Manuel’s work as Chad Valley is no exception, since his new full-length debut, Young Hunger, shows that he too had a hankering for something more substantial than the Balearic bliss of his early EPs. Featuring guest appearances from a slew of synth-pop hot shots like El Perro del Mar, George Lewis Jr of Twin Shadow, Glasser and Active Child, it’s unsurprisingly varied but persistently pleasurable.

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As a member you will also receive this magazine every month plus a stylish tote bag

Listen To This: Side Programme ft. Frank Alpine + Zes + Slagwerk Den Haag 08 March - Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam 19.30 - Free performance by Slagwerk Den Haag 20.30 - Main Programme | €24 | €10 for Subbacultcha members 22.00 - Subbacultcha Side Programme | Free for all

For the 08 March edition of the Listen to This series, wherein Colin Stetson’s mind-blowing saxophone work will be paired with a simantra performance by Slagwerk Den Haag, Subbacultcha will be hosting a great side programme. After the main programme (€10 for Subbacultcha! members) you can enjoy LA noir-synth maniac Frank Alpine and hazy Dutch beatmaker Zes. But please drop in early for a free preview by Slagwerk Den Haag (at 19.30), DJs, drinks and that magical Muziekgebouw ambiance.

Girls Names + Postmodem

09 March - De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam 20.00 | €8 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

Until this whole global warming thing pans out, I guess the weather in the United Kingdom will continue to be dreary and bleak. Until this whole economic recovery thing pans out, I guess the future of the United Kingdom will continue to seem pretty dreary and bleak as well. It’s no surprise that both factors have inspired countless native bands to make dreary and bleak-sounding music over the years, and the fourth release from Belfast’s Girls Names finds them dropping in on the recent wave of post-punk revivalism. Over the last four years Girls Names has expanded from a duo to a four-piece and has expanded greatly on the sonic scope of their music.

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See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.

Film: Jagten

11 March - 16CC, Amsterdam 19.00 | €8 | Free for Subbacultcha! members Thomas Vinterberg’s film Jagten made it into pretty much everyone’s 2012 end-of-year list. So if you haven’t seen it yet, well, then you missed out big time. Luckily, being the good Samaritans that we are, we’re offering you a chance to see it for free in one of Amsterdam’s cosiest cinemas. Enjoy and thank us later.

Film: Broken

12 March - LantarenVenster, Rotterdam tba | tba | Free for Subbacultcha! members

Acclaimed British theater director Rufus Norris makes his feature film debut with Broken, a tender coming-of-age drama starring Tim Roth, Cillian Murphy and young upstart Eloise Laurence. Centred around eleven-year old Skunk, the film chronicles the turmoil in a dysfunctional suburban culde-sac populated by broken homes, broken souls and, increasingly, broken bones. Broken is a culmination of unhinged emotional crises, thuggish crackups and fleeting moments of connection that basks in its cinematographer’s consummate glow.

Film: Le Grand Soir – exclusive pre-release screening 15 March - Melkweg Cinema, Amsterdam 21.00 | €5 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

A week before the official release of Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern’s new film Le Grand Soir, we are teaming up with De Filmfreak for an exclusive pre-release screening at the wonderful Melkweg Cinema. So come on down for a sneak peak into the absurd, humorous and anarchistic universe of Not, an old French punk rocker who knows a thing or two about freedom. Read more on page 47.

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As a member you will also receive this magazine every month plus a stylish tote bag

The Sound of the Dutch Underground 21 March - Melkweg, Amsterdam 19.00 | €12 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

F

AL FE STIV

Subbacultcha! got its start promoting Dutch bands, but has spent the past few years focusing a bit more on international acts. As the local music scene in the Netherlands just keeps getting more and more varied, interesting and interconnected, it’s high time we return to our roots! Our first festival will feature no less than 20 Dutch acts, from great labels like Subroutine, Snowstar Records and Samling Recordings, playing on four different stages at The Melkweg.

Featuring Herrek – Athmospheric dark folk.

Vox Von Braun – Fuzzy stoner pop from Groningen.

WOLVON - Uncompromising noiserock trio.

Glass Eyes - Electronic sighs.

Spilt Milk - Amsterdam’s own slam-folk/dead-poet ensemble.

Lemontrip – Melancholy galore Earth Control - Lo-fi casio garage punk.

Eklin – Haunting ambient sounds. zZz - Dark and groovy veteran sleaze duo.

Bismuth - Duo Yuri Landman and Arnold van der Velde banging on their homebuilt experimental instruments.

H-SIK – A bass heavy mix of dub, grime and footwork.

Façade - Haunting electronics Mike Koldin – Synthdrone ambient with stunning visuals.

Kleinindustrie – In-your-face noiserock.

April - Utrecht Wavepop trio.

Space Siren - The loud sound of sadness.

Those Foreign Kids - Noisy dance-punk/garage noise.

Vakantie - Happy hardcore from Groningen.

Mere Duo - Avant-garde/classic/jazz.

Nouveau Vélo - Perfect three-minute indiepop treasures.

Body II Body – Slick and sexy dance tunes for a late-late night.

Palmbomen (DJ-set) – Prolific Palmbomen spins personal favs.

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See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.

Jeremiah Jae

21 march - Tivoli Spiegelbar, Utrecht 20.30 | €7 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

Chicago native Jeremiah Jae describes himself as an emcee, producer, visual artist and healer. Affiliated with Young Black Preachers and the Black Jungle Squad Cxllective, Jae released several mixtapes and collaborations before starting to collaborate with Flying Lotus. Jae released 2011’s Rappayamatantra via FlyLo’s Brainfeeder label, relocated to Brainfeeder’s home in LA and made the budding romance official by letting the label release his proper debut, Raw Money Raps, this past summer. Appropriate, given that mystical self-description, Jae uses spacey, psychedelic production reminiscent of Flying Lotus’s own style to create a dream-like effect, while the way his vocals drift in and out of focus shapes him as a mysterious and mystical persona FlyLo himself referred to as ‘underrated and understated’.

Holly Herndon + Ignatz

27 March - OT301, Amsterdam 20.30 | €8 | Free for Subbacultcha! members 28 March - WORM, Rotterdam 21.00 | €7| Free for Subbacultcha! members

Holly Herndon is all about blurring the boundaries between man and machine. The Tennessee native and lifelong choir singer lived in Berlin for years, where she was immersed in that city’s bustling club culture but also made an aborted attempt to master a ‘real instrument’ (the contrabass) in Page 62

Shows in September

Agenda

As a member you will also receive this magazine every month plus a stylish tote bag

order to be taken more seriously as a composer. She returned to the US to study Electronic Music & Recording Media at Mill’s College, and being surrounded by students treating laptops as legitimate instruments inspired her to forgo ‘real instruments’ for good. On her 2012 debut, Movement, she manipulates her own crystalline voice with the precision of an ice sculptor, breaking it into chunks or crushing it into bits before carefully arranging it amidst chilly electronic soundscapes.

Lower + The Sweat Release of Death

29 March - WORM, Rotterdam 21.00 | €7 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

In their recent paean to Nordic government policies, The Economist suggested that ‘if you had to be reborn anywhere in the world as a person with average talents and income, you would want to be a Viking.’ Apparently they didn’t interview bands like Iceage, Holograms and Lower before arriving at this conclusion. The latter is the latest young band from up north that sounds like they’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more. A brash and ballsy four-piece from Copenhagen, Lower burst on to the scene this past spring with their aptly titled Walk on Heads EP, a nine-minute maelstrom of pummelling drums, explosive high hats, screeching guitars and passionately shouted lyrics that railed against the monotony of daily life.

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Agenda

Shows in March

See all these shows for free. Sign up at www.subbacultcha.nl.

Foam Photography Museum

Open daily 10.00-18.00, Thur and Fri until 21.00 €8.50 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

Foam is always free for members, and through late March there are several new exhibitions on display: the first major solo exhibition of Dutch duo WassinkLundgren; Jan Hoek’s photos of bizarre models (and the even more bizarre stories behind the pictures); the work of Toneelgroep Amsterdam scenographer/house photographer Jan Versweyveld (celebrating the theatre group’s 25th anniversary); plus a diverse selection of 19th-century Russian colour photography, from hand-tinted plates to mass-produced prints. Canary, a surreal and unsettling 2007 series by Japan’s Lieko Shiga, opens on the 22nd.

TENT

Open Tue-Sun 11.00-18.00 €4 | Free for Subbacultcha! members

Visiting this Rotterdam platform for contemporary art is free for members in March. The solo show by Rotterdam- and Berlin-based artists Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson that opened in February continues. This duo’s work examines the influence of socio-economic and political factors on the surrounding world in the form of installations, video works and neon sculptures, all produced over the last ten years.

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ZA 2 MRT FIDLAR/RICHIE DAGGER/ ELECTRIC TEARS WO 6 T/M 5 DAYS OFF HUDSON MOHAWKE/MODESELEKTOR/ ZO 10 MRT JAMES HOLDEN/LUKE SLATER/MR SCRUFF E.A. DO 14 MRT FALTYDL @ CABLE ZA 16 MRT STUURBAARD BAKKEBAARD ZO 17 MRT NOSAJ THING DO 21 MRT SUBBACULTCHA PRESENTS THE SOUND OF THE UNDERGROUND ZA 23 MRT TANGARINE ZO 24 MRT FAUN DO 28 MRT BOK BOK @ CABLE WO 3 APR TORRE FLORIM EN ROOS REBERGEN DE TWEEDE SPEELDOOS DO 4 APR SLAGSMÅLSKLUBBEN DO 4 APR TEEN/THE SECRET LOVE PARADE/ OCTO OCTA LET OP: DIT IS SLECHTS EEN SELECTIE VAN HET PROGRAMMA. HET VOLLEDIGE PROGRAMMA IS TE VINDEN OP WWW.MELKWEG.NL MELKWEG AMSTERDAM - LIJNBAANSGRACHT 234A

Agenda

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Shows in March

Agenda

Shows in March

Fidlar

Crosslinx 2013 ft. The Dodos + Patrick Watson + Nils Frahm 28 Feb - Vredenburg, Utrecht 01 Mar - Muziekgebouw, Eindhoven 02 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam 03 Mar - De Doelen, Rotterdam 04 Mar - Oosterpoort, Groningen As you might guess from its name if you thought about it long enough, this openminded and innovative festival crisscrosses the Netherlands over the course of a few days, linking together musical genres and avant-garde artists ranging from indie rock to classical music, often via special collaborative performances you won’t see anywhere else. The festival also organises mini concerts in odd little locations such as boiler rooms and cellars to showcase upcoming musicians via its Music Mining initiative.

STRP Biennial 01 Mar-10 Mar - Het Klokgebouw, Eindhoven Ten days of hybrid music, art and technology for curious people, housed in perhaps the most exciting and inspiring space in Eindhoven; The industrial STRIJP-S area.

The festival features DJ sets by SBTRKT, Hudson Mohawke, Lunice, Apparat and

many more; a New Machine Era ‘proeftuin’; and a City of Cyborgs exhibition.

Brooke Candy 01 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam Grimes fans will recognise Brooke Candy as the pink-haired Freaky Prince$$ from last year’s video for ‘Oblivion’. Not that you’d expect something subtle or uptight from a stripper-turned-rapper known for her two-metre-long neon-coloured braids and seemingly two-metre high heels, but just to make it clear: Candy canes misogynists and haters with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and nary a spoonful of sweetness.

FIDLAR 02 Mar - Melkweg, Amsterdam The name of this LA skate-punk quartet is an acronym for ‘Fuck It Dog, Life’s A Risk’, and at least on record they live according to this mantra with an almost religious dedication. Alternately evoking the Black Lips, the Descendents, Wavves and even Blink-182, they make risky business like surfing, skating, drinking cheap beer, doing cheap cocaine, smoking cheap weed and taking shitty pills sound like so much fun, you’ll be ready to convert as well.

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Agenda

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Shows in March

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04.04 — 06.04.2013 in de BRakke gRond / aMSteRdaM

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S

Agenda

Shows in March

UV-Pop + Mytron

Listen to This ft. Colin Stetson

06 Mar - Winston Kingdom, Amsterdam

(With Subbacultcha! side programme) 08 Mar - Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam

Sheffield’s John Kevin White started this downtrodden new wave/post-punk group as a solo project back in 1981, eventually taking on band members and playing on and off until 1997, when he disbanded the band. White resurrected it in 2010 exclusively for live shows, including a well-received performance at Incubate 2012, and the reception of their recent re-releases has been warm enough to inspire them to record new material.

5 Days Off 06 Mar-10 Mar - De Balie, Melkweg and Paradiso, Amsterdam 5 Days Off brings the party back to the heart of Amsterdam. Straddled over the first two weeks of March and two of Amsterdam’s largest venues, the annual electronic music festival hosts both established acts and emerging talent. This year’s line-up features the likes of Hudson Mowhawke, Araabmuzik, Tom Trago, Gilles Peterson, Floating Points, Benji B and much more.

Iceage 06 Mar - Effenaar, Eindhoven (Subbacultcha!)

09 Mar - Vera, Groningen A refreshing mix of goth, hardcore and post-punk with undeniable energy. Read more on page 58.

Chad Valley 07 Mar - Tivoli, Utrecht (Subbacultcha!)

08 Mar - Sugar Factory, Amsterdam Oxford native Hugo Manuel’s work as Chad Valley has gradually shifted away from the Balearic bliss of his early EPs towards more traditionally structured but still lovely synth pop. Read more on page 58.

Michigan-born, Montreal-based saxophonist Colin Stetson has worked with Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Tom Waits and many other shithot musicians and bands, but his solo work is something else entirely. Using unusual techniques and circular breathing, he manages to conjure a breathtaking variety of mournful, otherworldly sounds from his bass saxophone, creating stark and emotionally evocative work unlike anything else out there right now. Subbacultcha! is in charge of the side programme tonight, and you can read more about it on page 59.

Girls Names 09 Mar - De Nieuwe Anita (Subbacultcha!)

Though their early work was more surf-rock inspired, the fourth release from Belfast’s Girls Names finds them dropping in on the recent wave of post-punk revivalism. Read more on page 59.

Heems 13 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam 14 Mar - 013, Tilburg (Free) Heems, aka Himanshu Suri, rose to fame rapping with now-defunct Das Racist, a hip hop trio whose deadpan rhymes filled with allusions to race and pop culture were often hilarious, but always left audiences guessing as to whether they were laughing with you or at you. Heems’ lyrical focus on socioeconomic and political topics and probably ironic pretentiousness irks some, and in the past his delivery has occasionally crossed the line from casually cool to just plain sloppy, but his backing beats have always been solid, and his latest work on Wild Water Kingdom finds him adopting a welcome sincerity and focus.

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Agenda Shows in March DE HALLEN HAARLEM 9 MAART – 26 MEI 2013

Keith Edmier Beverly Edmier, 1967, 1998

Courtesy de kunstenaar en Petzel, New York

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Agenda

Shows in March

Nosaj Thing

Pien Feith

Nosaj Thing

14 Mar - Bitterzoet, Amsterdam

17 Mar - Melkweg, Amsterdam

Much of Amsterdam’s Pien Feith’s early work was stripped down, emotionally bare folk music, but over time she’s collected band members and incorporated more electronic elements into her sound. Though the title of her new album, Tough Love, means treating someone you love coldly or harshly, Feith for sure isn’t referring to the experience of taking in its warm and slick synthpop goodness.

LA-based Jason Chung was destined to become a band geek, but then a hip hoploving bus driver, some bootlegged audioediting software and productive friendships with the likes of Daedelus and Flying Lotus shaped him into the hip hop- and dubstepinfluenced IDM whizz he is today. His new album, Home, finds him letting some welcome warmth into the cavernous chilliness of his early work.

Herrek + I Am Oak

Yo La Tengo

16 Mar - Patronaat, Haarlem (Free) A great chance to see two of the best young bands in the Netherlands – for free!

Groninger Gerrit van der Scheer cut his teeth as the frontman of Bonne Aparte and the guitarist for Adept before forming Herrek as a more lyrically-focused project. Musically, the band is purportedly inspired by bands incorporating tribal and mystical influences, and Van der Scheer jacks up the jungle vibes with lyrics about his childhood on Papua on debut album Waktu Dulu. I am Oak, meanwhile, is the celebrated slowcore project of Utrecht’s Thijs Kuijken.

17 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam If you had to judge by their musical output as two-thirds of quintessential indie rock band Yo La Tengo, then Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley must have a pretty awesome marriage. Since they formed the band in Hoboken, New Jersey back in 1984, they’ve released album after album of multifaceted, sprawling indie-rock imbued with a sense of peacefulness and playfulness you could seemingly only find when content. ‘Yo La Tengo’ means ‘I have it’ in Spanish, and that zen sense of confidence is reflected in every release.

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Agenda

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Shows in March

Agenda

Shows in March

The Men

Jeremiah Jae

17 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam 20 Mar - Merleyn, Nijmegen

21 Mar - Tivoli, Utrecht (Subbacultcha!)

Brooklyn four-piece The Men are as virile and no-frills as their name implies, playing hardcore post-punk that’s melodic, distorted and LOUD. They come off as the kind of dudes that would shove you in the pit but immediately pick you back up if you fell, foaming beers in hand, faces flushed and beaming all the while.

Kilo Kish + The Internet 19 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam Basically, Kilo Kish is an extremely beautiful sort-of rapper with an extremely girlish vocal delivery not far removed from Kitty Pryde’s, but since she’s also got a whole legion of adoptive big brothers who just so happen to be producers, she finds herself surrounded by sick beats (and hype) instead of Hello Kitty pillows (and derision).

Egyptian Hip Hop 19 Mar - Tivoli, Utrecht This Manchester band got sucked into the UK hype machine even before they had released a first EP at the ripe old ages of 16 or 17. After the initial media blitz died down, they retreated from the spotlight, now emerging two years later with a refreshingly weird and warped sound reminiscent of Connan Mockasin.

The Sound of the Dutch Underground 21 Mar - Melkweg, Amsterdam (Subbacultcha!)

Our first festival will feature no less than 20 Dutch acts, from great labels like Subroutine, Snowstar Records and Samling Recordings, playing on four different stages at The Melkweg. Read more on page 61.

This LA-by-way-of-Chicago MC/producer and Brainfeeder signee uses spacey, psychedelic production reminiscent of Flying Lotus’ style to create a dream-like effect.

FlyLo himself calls Jae ‘underrated and understated’. Read more on page 62.

Klub 470 ft. Masha Qrella 22 Mar - Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam Klub 470 provides a podium for exciting upcoming German bands. This edition features Berlin based hazy pop singer Masha Qrella.

Nobunny 22 Mar - Effenaar, Eindhoven Justin Champlin’s work as Nobunny is something like the mix of garage rock and bubblepop pop that Hunx and His Punx are known for, except that he punx Hunx’s silly moustache and cutesy outfits by taking things one step further, with a not silly but rather creepy bunny mask and not cutesy but rather disturbing (and hilarious) outfits of raw meat, garbage, ball gags and even firecrackers.

Food Film Festival 22-24 Mar - Kriterion and Studio/K, Amsterdam With all the shows, drinking and dancing this month, we know your stomachs will be aching for a healthy meal. The Food Film Festival offers a sumptuous three days saturated with everything you need to know about nutritious, sustainable and wholesome grub with ‘tasty, high-quality products that are sustainably produced and free from dubious preservatives.’ There’ll be enough films, workshops, markets, food trucks and mouthwatering chow to make you slobber.

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Agenda

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Shows in March

Agenda

Shows in March

Lower 23 Mar - Indie Indie, Amsterdam 29 Mar - WORM, Rotterdam (Subbacultcha!)

30 Mar - ORKZ Bar, Groningen A brash and ballsy punk four-piece from Copenhagen, Lower is the latest young band from up north that sounds like they’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more. Read more on page 63.

Geertruida On Tour ft. Sexton Creeps, Glass Eyes, Vuurwerk 23 Mar - Patronaat, Haarlem Haarlem house show haven Geertruida is famous for its living room shows, but to give the neighbours a break they sometimes take the show on the road. Following a successful first edition of ‘Geertruida on Tour’ at the Patronaat Café in November, they’ve put together another genre-defying line-up.

Mirrorring 26 Mar - Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam Like the fingers of two hands intertwined, Jesy Fortino’s electro-acoustic minimal folk as Tiny Vipers and Liz Harris’ electro-acoustic ambient/noise work as Grouper fit together in the form of Mirroring both effortlessly and beautifully. 2012’s Foreign Body, their first collaboration, is a seamless fusion of their respective styles – a dreamlike and diaphanous recording suitable as beautiful background music, but dense enough to lend itself to closer and repeated listens.

Wild Nothing 27 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam Jack Tatum’s 2010 debut, Gemini, was very well received. Partly because of the timeliness of Tatum’s nostalgia, but more importantly because of his preternatural gift for

memorable melodies. His 2012 follow-up, Nocturne, was rife with timeless-sounding pop songs filled with graceful guitar melodies that sound like a dream come true no matter what time of day you hear them.

Tracks ft. Pekka Kuusisto 28 Mar - Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam Those of you who saw the amazing freefor-Subbacultcha!-members performance of young Finnish violin player Pekka Kuusisto at Het Concertgebouw back in November know that this one comes highly recommended.

Holly Herndon 27 Mar - OT301, Amsterdam (Subbacultcha!)

28 March - WORM, Rotterdam (Subbacultcha!)

This Tennessee native uses a laptop to manipulate her crystalline voice with the precision of an ice sculptor. Read more on page 62.

Jessie Ware 28 Mar - Melkweg, Amsterdam London’s Jessica Lois ‘Jessie’ Ware is yet another beautiful and talented pop singer, but her music is elevated above the ordinary by her association with extraordinary producers like SBTRKT and Joker.

The King Khan & BBQ Show 29 Mar - Paradiso, Amsterdam King Khan once shoved his bare and not particularly shapely ass in the face of Lindsey Lohan while performing with the Black Lips side project the Almighty Defenders at Cannes Festival. His work with BBQ (aka Mark Sultan) is similarly unruly. Additional information to persuade you to witness this crackerjack’s antics live seems superfluous.

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Free stuff

Free tickets and goodies

To win, sign up to our mailing list on www.subbacultcha.nl.

2x2 Tickets Listen to this: colin Stetson

2x2 tickets Oskar fischinger exhibition

3x2 tickets keith edmier exhibition

08 March Muziekgebouw aan t IJ, Amsterdam

Open till 17 March EYE, Amsterdam

Opening 08 March De Hallen, Haarlem

Autre ne veut anxiety

2x2 Tickets Film: Rauwer (food film Festival)

2x2 TICKETS Nosaj thing

3 Albums. Released on Software label

22-24 March Kriterion, Amsterdam

17 March Melkweg, Amsterdam

We’re also giving away free tickets to Lower at ORKZ, Outsider Music Festival, Iceage, Chad Valley, Egyptian Hip Hop, The Men, Nobunny, Legowelt, Klub 470 ft. Masha Qrella and Tracks ft. Pekka Kuusisto Page 76

Submitted photos

AFTER MIDNIGHT

Send photos that were taken after midnight to aftermidnight@subbacultcha.nl If your photo gets published, you win a good goodie This month’s photo was submitted by Willem Verweyen

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Overview of all Subbacultcha! shows in March

06 March

Iceage + supports AreaFiftyOne, Eindhoven 20.00 | €10 | Free for members

07 March

Chad Valley

Tivoli Spiegelbar, Utrecht 20.30 | €7 | Free for members

08 March

Listen To This: Side Programme Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, Amsterdam 19.00 | Free for all

09 March

Girls Names + Postmodem

De Nieuwe Anita, Amsterdam 20.00 | €8 | Free for members

11 March

Film: Jagten

16CC, Amsterdam 19.00 | €8 | Free for members

12 March

Film: Broken

LantarenVenster, Rotterdam tba | tba | Free for members

15 March

Film: Le Grand Soir

Exclusive pre-release screening Melkweg Cinema, Amsterdam 21.00 | €5 | Free for members

21 March

The Sound of the Dutch Underground

Melkweg, Amsterdam 19.00 | €12 | Free for members

21 March

Jeremiah Jae

Tivoli Spiegelbar, Utrecht 20.30 | €7 | Free for members

23 March

Freezing Favela Mediamatic Fabriek, Amsterdam 12.00-18.00 | €5 | Free for members

27 March

Holly Herndon + Ignatz

OT301, Amsterdam 20.30 | €8 | Free for members

28 March

Holly Herndon + Maan + Ignatz

WORM, Rotterdam 20.30 | €7 | Free for members

29 March

Lower + The Sweet Release of Death WORM, Rotterdam 20.30 | €7 | Free for members

All Month

Foam Photography Museum

27 March

Open daily 10.00-18.00, Thur and Fri until 21.00 €8.50 | Free for members

Mediamatic Fabriek, Amsterdam 19.30 | €8 | Free for members

TENT Rotterdam

Ignite 26

Open Tue-Sun 11.00-18.00 €4 | Free for members

See all these shows for free. Join at www.subbacultcha.nl Page 78

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R E STOR ED. N L

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