TRESPASSERS W
WLUCHT OVER DEN HAAG (CD)
Musicians:
Cor Gout: vocals, voice, tapes
Eddie Kagie: voice on all recitations
Wim Oudijk: keyboards, various instruments and effects, backing vocals
Ronnie Krepel: bass, guitar, contrabass, accordion, banjo, organ
Lukas Simonis: guitar, banjo, mandolin, ukelele
Cor Hoogerdijk; drums, bicycle-percussion, voice, vocals
Jeffey Bruisma: violin
Frans Frederich: soundscape, backing vocals, human beat-box
Hajo Doorn, voice, vocals, human beat-box
Koos Gizen: guest appearance
Van Dyke Parks: big help
Produced by Wim Oudijk at Disco Fair, The Hague.
Art work/inspiration: Maisie.
Layout and Printing: Knust.
Recording and mastering: Wim Oudijk. Engineering: Guus van Leeuven and Wim.
Help/inspiration: Paul Ricketts, John Baine, Ren van der Voort, Martin Bont, Nars Warren, Claude Debussy.
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Reviews in English: 5___________________________________________________________________________
TROUW (daily newspaper/national), 07/12/2000
by STAN RIJVEN:
Trespassers W, Vlucht Over Den Haag
(Translated from Dutch to English)
The weather’s fine, in The Hague
The total opposite (of a CD by Dyzack-cg) is given voice to by Trespassers W. After 15 years and an immense stream of records, this outsider will take care of the necessary resistance in the Residence (of the gouvernment; that is: The Hague-cg). Famous abroad, neglected in their own country, the collective continues unwearingly with what they are excellent at. Trespassers W combines pop, music hall and electronic experiment with poetry. Every album has its own theme, so that on each occasion a ‘surplus’ comes into being.
Also on ‘Vlucht Over Den Haag’ they thread the seperate songs until they become a strong unity. The Scheveningen lighthouse is the starting point as well as the end point. From there onwards Trespassers W let their light shine on 16 locations and characters from The Hague in olden times. Each time the perpective tips over: the Hague Zoo (‘Betsie the Elephant’), a well known street character (‘the Chinese Candyman) or a famous street (‘Laan van Meerdervoort’, a scratch over the city map) appear for your mind’s eye. One by one they are miniatures, each of them provided with a matching arrangement plus a page in a beautiful text-book. Thus The Hague today doesn’t belong to yesterday.
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DE MORGEN (Belgian newspaper), 12/01/2001
by DIRK STEENHAUT:
Trespassers W, Voyage through time and space
(Translated from Dutch to English)
The Hague formation Trespassers W is, in changing line-ups, already active since 1984 and they never subordinated their artistic point of view to commercialism. Under the leadership of singer, poet and publicist Cor Gout, they have built up an international network of friends, sympathisers and fans, with offshoots to Eastern europe and the US and thus they prove that small-scaledness doesn’t have to stand in the way of a large radius of action.
Like the name Trespassers W (from the Winnie the Pooh-books by A.A. Milne) indicates, the company in its operations is set to break new grounds. ‘Vlucht Over Den Haag’ is in fact a beautifully wrapped up soundtrack for a multi-media performance which could be seen at our northern neighbours last year. The material, this time exclusively in Dutch, contains poetic songs and stories, told by Eddie Kagie, which form a musical radioplay with one and other.
As regards content, it’s all about a voyage through space and time: in the light of dreams, memories and historical facts, Gout tries to map his own biotope, even though it is obvious that his city and the city don’t necessarily coïncode. Because where does impression end and where does myth begin? Did the distance of years make symbols out of the lighthouse keeper, Betsie the Elephant, the Chinese Candyman and the Two Coachmen or do they only serve the ‘couleur locale’? One impressionistic scene follows the other, supported by music which is now playful and frivolous, then again elegant and penetrating.
Trespassers W adopts a middle course between rock and cabaret, but let themselves also inspire by Van Dyke Parks and Claude Debussy. The latter leads to magnificent pieces like ‘Oom Jan’s Hemelvaart’ and ‘Sonia Szewcjyk’s Ballet School’. Many of these songs could be heard, be it in different versions, on earlier records by the group. Now that they turn up in a new context, they seem to get a different, deeper meaning. The way in which the lyrics are forced into the straitjacket of the song-structure, strikes the listener as artificial, now and again.
Nevertheless, Vlucht Over Den Haag is a fascinating and compelling work. The CD appeared on an Italian label, a limited edition is available through Trespassers W.
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POSTHOORN, week 51-PCE3 (fragment)
by Bert, Ernie and The Original Sin:
(Translated from Dutch to English)
« De CD ‘Vlucht Over Den Haag’ is released in Italy. There people are interested in experimental theatrical forms. And because in that country they get a bit fed up with all the Anglo-Saxon music, they wanted our CD. In the booklet, which comes with it, all the lyrics and texts have been printed in English. So the listeners will know what the story is about. »
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GONZO CIRCUS, Belgium
by JWB, with thanks to RCB:
TRESPASSERS W, Vlucht Over Den Haag (Snowdonia)
(Translated from Dutch to English)
The Hague group Trespassers W fares better abroad than in The Netherlands. Therefore their CD ‘Leaping the Chasm’ was released on the extraordinary French Organic-label and their new one on the self-willed Italian label Snowdonia. The new CD tells stories about The Hague or taking place in The Hague. And they know the city well, because who still knows that there has been a small zoo in that city? Or who knows the Chinese candyman, who could be found on streetcorners and in doorways with his small bags of peanuts? Some parts are spoken, others are sung. The music is an avant-gardistic mishmash of sweet string music, tapes, guitar eruptions, music by wind instruments and elektronics. They remind us changeably of Kift, The Ex, Palinx and are a bit more folkloric. With a bit less spoken word and less corniness this CD would be totally perfect. But then there’s always something.
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STAGE, Belgium, vol.6, #75, 18/07/01
by JPS:
Trespassers W -Vlucht over Den Haag– Snowdonia/De Konkurrent
(Translated from Dutch to English)
Apparently they have a thing going with circus life and with the challenge of the laws of gravitation, these Trespasssers W: ‘Fly Up in the Face of Life’ (’95) (with songs like ‘The Circus’, ‘Houdini’, ‘Ikarus’), ‘Leaping the Chasm’ (’99) and now this ‘Vlucht over Den Haag’, the soundtrack of the multimedia (or ‘multi-arts’, as we should say it in General Dutch) spectacle which took place in The Hague in march 1999. Once again we are confronted with oppressive melodies and lyrics which even with the nearly lifeless pope might create many eyebrow-frowns. A few songs from the former CD (‘Leaping the Chasm’) can be heard again: ‘The Lighthouse’, ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’ (with fragments from the music of Van Dyke Parks), ‘Betsy Fatsy’ (about an elephant at the circus), though the lyrics on ‘Vlucht over Den Haag’ are all sung in Dutch by frontman Cor Gout, who also took care of all the compositions, be it for the greater part with the help of a few other bandmembers, like Wim Oudijk (keyboards), Lukas Simonis (guitars, mandolin, ukelele, banjo), Ronnie Krepel (bass, contrabass, guitar, accordeon, organ, banjo), who find themselves here in the company of Cor Hoogerdijk (drums, percussion and vocals) and special guests Eddie Kagie, who reminds us now and again of Drs. P for his specific vocal timbre, Jeffrey Bruinsma (violin), Frans Friederich (voice, human beatbox, soundscapes) and Hajo Doorn (vocals, human beatbox). In a musical flight over roughly fourty years of history, at which I was reminded most often of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, which shouldn’t surprise anybody, because Zappa himself has tried out all different sorts of musical styles and knew how to perform these in a most skillful way, we get to hear stories about locations in The Hague, their histories and myths, but we learn also about the memories of these locations and about the working of the memory which distorts the images of the city. As was the case with Zappa, with Trespassers W the music regularly serves as a sonic illustration of what is said, by which it automaticly gets the character of a soundtrack. The CD was packaged in a quite unconventional way, by which it gives the impression of being a present for father’s day, which yearly is knocked up at school by many pre-schoolchildren with the very best intentions. The book which comes with the CD contains the English translations of the lyrics.