The Nits C/D S/D

The other two songs are 'Ting' era B Sides, from the Cars & Cars single.

Still haven't got fully into all the orchestra pieces but I need to give this one a rest and come back to it in a couple of years. There are a lot of good moments though.

Lyrics of "Moved By Her" seem to contrast with the peeping tom lyrics.

I travelled over to see them in Amsterdam this week, they played in an old church in the outhern canal district now called De Duif (The Dove), it was a lovely venue.

The performance was brilliant, best I'd seen them. It was obvious they had been working live most of the year and were really sharp but relaxed and stretching the dynamics of the older songs and all the weird noisy layers on the Angst songs were to the forefront, I guess I won't be hearing the album in full again, so it was great to hear one more time.

Lot's or Robert Jan related stuff on Dutch TV over the next few days for some reason and you can see a rebroadcast of the Hijuvi concert here -

https://www.parmando.com/watch/robert-jan-stips-hjuvi-concert/?fbclid=IwAR3Opt6zsX_qd0QaoJj3ypprTE_4MgLJVQbA_lKdmfUZv6gOy-4_7ZmsFiQ

Cool, might watch that soon.

You mean you wont be hearing Angst live in full again?

Lyrics of "Moved By Her" seem to contrast with the peeping tom lyrics.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, November 23, 2018 4:37 PM

Meant to say the sound of the song contrasted with the lyrics.

Yeah, when I saw them earlier in the year they played the whole record and this week they played all of it except for Breitner On A Kreidler for some reason.

Huu-uu-uun-gry

In The Dutch Mountains - I think I like this a bit better than Ting (as good as that was). Two of my favorite songs on it are upbeat with nostalgic melancholy choruses ("J.O.S. Days" and "An Eating House") and two others with a more subtle downbeat feel are just as good ("Two Skaters" and "The Swimmer"). "Mountain Jan" and "Moon And Stars" are also great (are they using a similar string instrument?).

I see that the final three tracks weren't on the original vinyl version. It does make some sense to end with "Goodnight" but I would miss "Moon And Stars", though I never really dug "Magic Of Lassie" or "Strangers In The Night" that much.

Daddy be hungry

ITDM is their imperial phase really, the resulting live album Urk is a testament to that.

It was also apparently recorded live to two-track as a reaction to the overproduction they felt happened with Adieu Sweet Bahnhof, which explains the big bass clanger in the middle of Two Skaters.

Nostalgic melancholy is a keystone of this era of Nits really, the last couple of times I saw them Henk had started singing that poignant last verse of JOS Days in Dutch, then when I saw them late last year he was singing the whole song in Dutch for some reason.

New album 'Knot' (a very Nits-ish title) coming in November!

Started listening to Giant Normal Dwarf.

It has a child-like quality, word is that Henk wrote some of the songs by adapting stories that he made up to tell his kids at bedtime.

This is an amazing album, probably the most consistent one I've heard yet. I always play it last at night because it just seems right, strange album. The last last third is particularly good.

"Around The Fish" is genius. "The Night-Owl" has references to Leonard Cohen but it doesn't seem like it's about him. Guitars on "House Of Sleeping Beauties are glorious.

The beautifully quirky little studio spot in Amsterdam, 'Werf' that has served as their home base for recording, storage, and rehearsals for decades is burning to the ground as I type, totally devastated for the members of the band.

Robert Jan has messaged that the band has 'lost everything...'

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdnxis0IEKv/

That's horrible

As is often the case, the band's fans rallied with a GoFundMe page which, after some news coverage, exceeded its initial target of €15k and has been reset to 25k, and it's nearly there too.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/inzamelingsactie-nieuwe-apparatuur-voor-de-nits

Awful to hear about the Werf fire, but glad the GoFundMe's gone well. Had dug out In The Dutch Mountains and Giant Normal Dwarf to listen to again; had tried to very crudely tell fellow NZers that they were sort've an equiv to how Split Enz/Crowded House are here (psych passing through new wave into beloved late-80s craft-heavy pop) but not sure how well that holds up.

MaresNest, this is a bit of a reach, but would you happen to have the tracklisting of that compilation you made ~7 years ago? My digital copy didn't survive the trip back from China / lost access to the email addresses I was using over there.

(also - loosely inspired by the Nits, I picked up an NYRB translation of Nescio's Amsterdam Stories)

Heya etc, well I had a look in my old music drive and I actually do have the mix, much to my surprise.

Here is a link - https://fromsmash.com/3YFmgggwoO-bt

https://fb.watch/epjNPKNpqY/