Liesbeth Esselink

During the course of the summer of 2008, Bart van Poppel and Elisabeth Esselink trekked the numerous rivers, lakes and waterways covering the twelve provinces of the Netherlands by an old motor boat. In each province a different cast of musicians were invited to climb aboard and purely a l'improviste, create a homage to the Dutch landscape. On returning to her home base in Amsterdam, Esselink took the resulting material full of noises, moods, voices and rhythms back to her studio where she set about processing the recordings into twelve separate sound-image com­positions, one for each province. Solex Ahoy, or better still, The Sound Map of the Netherlands is a reflection of the perilous route. A homage to the Dutch waterways. DIARY: Solex Ahoy - province Noord-Holland / UNDIES Our trip started of in Amsterdam, Noord-Holland and we tried to schedule 5 musicians but only managed to record 2 due to holidays & bad weather. No problem though 'cause we also will end our trip in Amsterdam and will be able to record the remaining girl & boys then (Cello, guitar and drums). Yesterday we recorded the young and talented Mechteld Bannier on baritone sax and Henny Vrienten on bass guitar. Anyone who grew up in The Netherlands during the seventies & eighties might remember Henny as bass player & singer of Doe Maar. To give you an impression: Doe Maar knew what it was like to get ladies underwear thrown at them. I never threw anything at them however. I just did that once: I found undies of my boyfriend in my pocket when I was at a Henry Rollins concert...and 1+1=2 Rollins stated it was the first time he got mens underwear thrown at him and didn't really know what to think of it. Anyway.....when we recorded Henny, the rain was pouring down so heavily that all I heard on my DV-recorder was white noise. Luckily the audio recording was ok. XElisabeth.