Big in Belgium : Monza

Monza, named after the famous racing track in Italy, is a Belgian band around Stijn Meuris (whom many remember from Noordkaap). They have released their third album earlier this year, called Attica!
For me, this album is their best so far. More diverse, more to the point and with a much better finishing touch, it beats everything they have released before. And I firmly believe that you don't need to understand the lyrics in Dutch to enjoy these songs :

• Wie danst er nog ? (mp3)
• De dag is helder (mp3)
• Lobby (mp3)
• Wenen in Wenen (mp3)

You can buy the album here

Big in Belgium : Arno

Arno (Hintjens), once the frontman of Belgian rock stars T.C. Matic, has been enjoying a lot of respect from musicians all over Europe (and perhaps beyond?). He has worked with many great artists, covered many great songs (including some unusual suspects like Salvatore Adamo's Les filles du bord de mer). Actually, he's probably the biggest living legend in Belgian music, always performing for crowds of crazy fans...

Enjoy these songs :

• It's all over now (mp3) : a Womack & Womack cover, originally played with all star band Charles et Les Lulus
• I'm not myself (mp3) : featuring Tom Barman from dEUS and Stef Kamil Carlens from Zita Swoon
• Les yeux de ma mère (mp3)
• Putain putain (mp3) : orginally a T.C. Matic song

You can buy the album Give me the gift, which features all above songs, here

Big in Belgium : Bobbejaan

Bobbejaan Schoepen is one of those old time stars from the fifties and sixties, who got very famous in Belgium. I wrote about him once in my post about Dead Man Ray and its lead singer Daan.

Earlier this year, after a long, long silence (35 years!), he released a new record, which got a sort of American recordings treatment, albeit on a smaller scale. With some help from Daan and Elko Blijweert (from Dead Man Ray), Nathalie Delcroix (from Laïs), Geike Arnaert (from Hooverphonic) and Axelle Red, as well as from his song Tom and his wife Josée, he recorded 12 new songs (well, actually one of them is a sort of remake of one of his most famous songs in Dutch, De lichtjes van de Schelde). The record sounds a bit like the Rick Rubin produced Johnny Cash songs, but it also sounds very Flemish and the songs certainly do a lot of justice to the singing voice and whistling by Bobbejaan.

Also, the records is a musical hommage to aged men. It's about getting older and viewing your life in retrospect, and about the experience one gathers throughout one's life, about losing your youth, strength and fysical ability.

Enjoy these songs :

• Je me suis souvent demandé (mp3) : singing in French, together with Axelle Red, Bobbejaan wonders about the bigger and smaller questions of life...
• Flower of Shanghai (mp3) : Daan sings most of this song, about the long-distance love of a sailor in a far away port...
• On a carousel (mp3) : mostly instrumental, with a lot of whistling (something Bobbejaan was famous for in his oldest songs), and with a spoken (Dutch) introduction...
• Verankerd (mp3) : this song is probably the best of the whole record : it's about being old and sick (cancer), but still wanting to live, it's the song which offers the rich palet of Bobbejaan's singing (the voice of an old and experienced singer, a lot of country influences, but at the same time it sounds about as provincial as it can get) and it hits the mood of the lyrics so right on that's impossible to resist to the beauty of it, even if it is sung in Dutch... Of course, as Dutch is my mother language, I cannot judge it, but I wonder if you hear the richess of this even if you're unfamiliar with the language (I would guess so). So please give it a try (and feel free to leave a comment about it...)

You can buy the record Bobbejaan here

Big in Belgium : Headphone

They are one of the rising stars of the Belgian alternative scene : Headphone !
I really, really dig their newest single, She is electric, which has just about all the right ingredients to make it here and anywhere (if promoted properly, as beautiful music in itself is not enough to conquer the ears of foreign music lovers, in today's giant mass of musical production). This is the video for it :


Enjoy these tracks from their debut album :

• She is electric (mp3)
• Ghostwriter (mp3)
• Film (mp3)

You can buy the album here

Arsenal

Two Belgian bands I know have a name that is all too familiar to all of us soccer fans. Galatasaray, named after a successfull Istanbul side, and Arsenal (just like the London based top team) have experienced different paths of success.

Arsenal have released their third album, which took shape during an unexpected trip to the Finnish frozen lakes. They originally set out for Norway to record their songs, but ended up in Finland. The experience resulted in an instrumental album, which was used as a soundtrack for the TV show De Poolreizigers and in their third album, Lotuk. For this album they were able to work with some of their heroes, including Grant Hart (from Hüsker Dü), John Garcia (from Kyuss), Shawn Smith (from Brad, Pigeonhed and Satchel).

Enjoy these songs :

• Lotuk (mp3)
• Diggin a hole (mp3)
• Who we are (mp3)

You can buy the album here

Big in Belgium : Hoover(phonic)

In 1996, when Hooverphonic released their debut album, they were actually called Hoover (but for legal reasons they had to change their name if they wanted to release music outside of Belgium, if I remember well...) Their music was sort of triphoppy and didn't go unnoticed, as one of their songs was used by Bertolucci for Stealing beauty.
Apart from the radio edit for 2Wicky (mp3), I have also added the DJ Pulse Dub (mp3) of that song as well as the song the original sample was taken from : Walk on by (mp3) by Isaac Hayes.


You can buy the Hoover(phonic) debut album A new stereophonic sound spectacular here

The Clement Peerens Explosition

The Clement Peerens Explosition started as a joke by the men who made a hilarious radio comedy show, Het leugenpaleis, on Studio Brussel. And then they became so popular that they made some more songs, and after a lot of years in which petitions were being initiated for them to have a reunion, they did indeed return to stage earlier this year.
Their band leader, so-called Antwerp pop and rock expert Clement Peerens (his real name is Hugo Matthysen), claims after all they do no more play some AC/DC riffs in reverse order, adding lyrics in the Antwerp dialect.
Enjoy :

• Vinde gij mijn gat (niet te dik in deze rok)? (mp3)
• Dikke Lu (mp3)

You can also watch them at their reunion concert, singing probably their biggest hit (Vinde gij mijn gat..., which means something like "You don't think my butt's too big in this dress, do you ?")

It seems impossible to buy their music on the internet, but keep searching, maybe you'll have some more luck...

Big in Belgium : Sioen / Milow

Two bands from Belgium today :



Sioen is the band of 28 year old Frederik Sioen, a guy from my hometown (yes, once again !), that has released its third album, A potion. You can listen to some of their songs here.



Milow is a singer-songwriter, whose debut The bigger picture has been released in January of last year, but only recently has he risen to some (local) fame with the beautiful single which you'll find below...



This is a song from Sioen's debut album, See you naked,
Cruisin' (mp3)


This is the biggest hit so far for Milow :
You don't know (mp3)


Buy Sioen records here
Buy Milow's debut here

Big in Belgium : Dead Man Ray / Daan

One of the weirdest musical experiences in my life must have been the live performance of a soundtrack to an old movie by Belgian band Dead Man Ray. The movie "At the drop of a hat" (its original title in Dutch being "Café zonder bier" A bar without beer, also called "De ordonnans") stars the one and only Belgian cowboy Bobbejaan Schoepen, singer/actor/founder of an amusement park.

Of course Bobbejaan Schoepen sings most of the songs in the original movie, but Dead Man Ray composed new music to the movie, which they played live while the movie was being shown. However, the screening of the movie was not as regular as you would suppose : they seemed to "scratch" the movie : some parts were being repeated, rewinded countless times, some parts must have been missing, which made it quite hard to understand the story of the movie (honestly, I couldn't tell you what it's about...).

Dead Man Ray are currently on a break, as leadsinger Daan Stuyven has been busy with his solo career for quite some years now, with a lot of success. If you ever get the chance of seeing this guy performing on a stage, don't miss it ! It's definitely worth it...

For your enjoyment, I have posted a song by Dead Man Ray, a song by Daan (from one of his solo albums) and a Bobbejaan Schoepen song from that movie (the title song, so to speak...) :

Beegee - Dead Man Ray (mp3)

Housewife - Daan (mp3)

Café zonder bier - Bobbejaan Schoepen (mp3)

Buy Dead Man Ray records here

Buy Daan records here

Buy Bobbejaan Schoepen stuff here

Big in Belgium : Novastar

Joost Zwegers' band Novastar has brought us two nice albums with several nice tracks, that show his craftmanship as a songwriter. His epynomous debut and his second album (Another lonely soul) have both been critically acclaimed, and with reason...

Have a taste of Novastar and buy his records here :

When the lights go down on the broken hearted - Novastar