Solex - Solex Ahoy! The Sound Map of the Netherlands

Elisabeth Esselink, aka Solex, has been teasing our ears for years now with her marvellous future-pop constructions built from samples, live instrumentation electronics and vocals, all melted together into a totally accessible whole. For this album she and partner in sound Bart van Poppel navigated Holland’s waterways, recording various local musicians as they went, to put together this album and its corresponding documentary, which is included in the lovely LP/CD/DVD package.

I’m not able to watch the DVD here in the office but we’ve given the CD a couple of spins so I’m going to talk about what the music sounds like. It’s a procession of crisp, melodic pop music, mostly instrumental, which utilises all sorts of brass, woodwind, accordion, singing saw, slide guitar and various other instruments into its tightly woven and immaculately finished grooves. As with Esselink’s previous records, decent comparisons are hard to come by, there’s a lot of variety over the course of the album, with elements of neofolk, stomping country rock and bright, friendly pop all swirling around in the mix, with plenty of clever little details which become clearer over repeated listens. Terrific stuff.