My friend and great inspiration, Harm Goslink Kuiper, has a new album just out called 'Stil Leven' and it is an incredibly special piece of work. Harm has been building his own instruments for years and has been into 'roots' music long before it was 'in'. He is truly an original and i deeply admire him.
This album, which he has worked on for about two years, is really a culmination of everything Harm is about. The cover of the album is one of his paintings, on the back there is a hook so that you can hang it on the wall. (Neat-O!) Many of the instruments played on the album he built himself. In the beautiful CD packaging there is a booklet included in which his instruments are pictured among other wonderful creations. The themes considered in his work are primarily loneliness, love and longing and the lyrics are nothing less than textual art. They are however all in Dutch with the exception of one which is in French. But, this shouldn't hinder non dutch-speaking music fans from loving this album.. The melodies and atmosphere of the music are breathtaking in themselves. On a personal note, i'm very proud to say that my singing saw is to be heard on two of the songs on the album, "Open Book" and "Ma P'tite Gazelle".
Click here to hear samples of each song. Or better yet, Click Here to order 'Stil Leven'. If you're real fast you can get one of the 250 editions which Harm has hand signed and numbered. Want to know more?... In this video Harm tells his story about 'Stil Leven' (in dutch) and demonstrates many of the instruments which he has built. One of them is a ukulele... Bonus!
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