Kleefstra / Pruiksma / Kleefstra

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release
Soundclips

4...according to our Phil on Tue 22 Nov, 2011.

Where's the pop tunes I ask? Today I want pop tunes and I've got a load of experimental and drone for a change. I'm my own worst enemy...The Piiptsjilling brothers are back and they've collaborated with multi-percussionist Sytze Pruiksma (who can play more than one drum at once) for a new album on the Hibernate label. They've had releases out on loadsa cool labels like Home Normal. Experimedia, White Box etc... The album is reasonably difficult as you'd expect... discordant guitars twang, cymbals crash, strange electronic noises randomly appear and there's some Dutch spoken word business going on as well. For all it's difficulties it's not at all unpleasant on the ear. The sound is a very sparse one... there's lots of space for everything to breathe and you end up with a record that sounds quite soundtracky. There's also a jazzy feel to it and at times I'm reminded of elements of latter Talk Talk. It's an interesting record alright and it's nice to see the label do something different. Well worth checking out if you're into moody sounding atmospheric music.

To play these clips you need to either update your browser (Norman Records recommends Google Chrome) or update your Flash plugin.

The Kleefstra brothers, Romke and Jan are members of the Dutch improv band Piiptsjilling along with Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) and Mariska Baars (Soccer Committee). In 2008 Piiptsjilling recorded its first acclaimed, untitled album and since the brothers have worked and recorded together with several other musicians. Their music invariably involves the experimental guitar playing of Romke in combination with the spoken word in Frisian, an old European minority language by Jan. Sometimes dreamy, melancholic and melodic, sometimes dark, haunting and noisy, but always instant music, both in the studio and on stage.

In 2009 they published their album Wink, with guitarist Chris Bakker from The Netherlands. In 2010 Piiptsjilling returned with the album Wurdskrieme on Experimedia, while in 2011 the brothers published several albums and split releases on labels such as Home Normal, Rural Colours and Whitebox with Gareth Davis, Peter Broderick, Machinefabriek, Nils Frahm, Heather Woods Broderick, Greg Haines and Danny Saul. In addition they shared stages, in Europe and Japan with all of these.

Meanwhile Romke and Jan also collaborated with multi-percussionist Sytze Pruiksma, who is known in The Netherlands for innumarable multimedia projects of which ‘Lân’ led to a fascinating cd and a great performance on the Governors Island near New York. Pruiksma is also a member of the Dutch improv group NoDo. Together with Pruiksma the Kleefstra’s played several gigs in The Netherlands and Germany, partly with Greg Haines and Nils Frahm, on prestigious festivals like CTM (Berlin), Into The Great Wide Open (Netherlands) and Approximation (Düsseldorf) in 2011. By then they already recorded their first album together, called ‘Deislieper’ (which is the Frisian name for the nightjar and literally it means ‘day sleeper’), released here on Hibernate.

Be the first to review this record. Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!