Smet

Crazy Belgian '80s electropop-rockduo from Ghent. The band initially consisted of guitar player (later multi-instrumentalist) Rembert De Smet and drummer Herman Celis. The name ("two belgians") was jokingly explained as "the only thing we had in common : our nationality". Almost all the songs are written by Rembert De Smet, who also characterizes the music by the extensive use of the guitar-synthesizer (then a small revolution), playing bass & rhythm on the same guitar and by his quite unique singing style. They sign a deal with Antler (a firm in Aarschot best known for its productions in the alternative genre, eg. Chowchow, Poesie Noire, Nacht Und Nebel, Siglo XX …) and record a first single with Roland Beelen as producer : this is the single "Quand le film est triste / Lena", of which they immediately sell more than 5,000 copies…

Wizard of Strings Geir Sundstøl is back with his fourth solo album, St.Hanshaugen Steel. The title is an homage to the long gone steel factory located on his own stomping ground, and also a reference to Sundstøl’s reputable broad spectrum-treatment of the pedal steel guitar.

Now here's a band that could separate irk from quirk if you tend to keep your sounds squarely traditional. Surf Punks meets Oingo Boingo meets Zappa, maybe? Commissioned (!) by Belgium's De Wert Brogge, the profoundly-titled Surf, Wind & Desire is a sequence of humorous vignettes focusing on various aspects of beach culture and marine life. Hardscore's music parallels the lyrical goofiness of principal composer and marimba player Frank Nuyts without sounding avant for avant's sake. The quasi-epic "The Creep From The Deep" is sonic performance art, a comical chronology concerning the biological and social evolution of one Chuck The Fish. "Kite Control" and "Cod" are titled bluntly to cloak their surprises from the casual listener. Speaking of Nuyts, he and saxophonist Frank Debruyne slow-roasted this feast; the text reads like prose yet nearly every song can be blocked out in abba, abab or aabb (the most obvious exception being "Burnin' Off Love), certain wordings resembling the handiwork of arch-hedonist Ty Webb, probably penned while getting toasted in front of his Casiotone.