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solex, "low kick and hard bop"

The Amsterdam-based CD shop owner Elisabeth Esselink has deliveredanother bopping poppy soda-jerking sound-clashing long player as Solex.The new album is full of 15 peculiar yet captivating songs and is notyour regular haphazard clumsy mess. According to Matador's website,'Low Kick and Hard Bop' won out the title of this album, which also had'A Cross Between Cyndi Lauper and Early SPK' in the running. (You canguess which one would get my vote.) Esselink is asinger/multi-instrumentalist and clearly has a huge record collectionwhich probably dwarfs the one of Four Tet's Kieran Hebden. Bizarre,obscure samples combine with her playing and singing in a remarkablydemented world of tv game shows, Incredibly Strange Music collections,Hank Williams, Nancy Sinatra, Don Ho, and Herb Alpbert. Picture a crowdof awkward Dutch kids in blue jeans dancing messily around a 1950sburger shop. It's a world of big bright lights and loud colors, hairtossing and skirt twirling. Esselink proves she's not just anothersampladelic diva, but she is a pretty face too! I'm sure she takes herjovial art quite seriously and I can't wait to see her live again thisNovember where I ask her to be my wife. Check out www.solex.net for a really cool site and tour dates.

 

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