Dummy reissue 2 x cd (Mecanique Populaire, 2009)
AMR 004
Cd 1: Dummy LP (1988)
Cd 2: bijdragen aan compilaties (1987-1991)
Illustraties: Ronnie Krepel, Jef Benech, Caroline Dahyot
Vormgeving: Jef Benech
EQ-ing, remastering: Wim Oudijk, Guus van Leeuwen (Disco Fair, Den Haag)
Coproductie Mecanique Populaire, TW Records
Winkelprijs: € 15,00
Via Trespassers W: € 15,00 + p&p/verzendkosten
Trespassers W- Dummy passes and the network-years (1988 et seq.)In the last week of November and the first days of December 1988 Trespassers W recorded nineteen tracks for a double album which was to be called ‘Dummy’. The band had chosen the PPM-Studio in Amsterdam, better known as ‘The Oktopus’, situated in the Conradstraat, a legendary squatting area in Amsterdam. The studio was renowned for the
hard, dry and rough sound it produced and that was the sound the group was aiming at. Amsterdam engineer Patrick Richter had a reputation of being able to create this sort of ‘no nonsense’ sound. In 1987 Trespassers W had played a lot of concerts and developed a sound which suited both smaller and bigger venues: it was intended that the recorded tracks should match the live sound as much as possible. Therefore the band wanted hardly
any effects and hardly any overdubs. This also meant that the new LP was going to be different from former releases.
American rock-writer from Alternative Press and DJ with 12 O’ Clock Rock, Andrea ‘Enthal wrote to Cor Gout, after having received a copy of the LP: “Hi Cor, the latest TW record is quite a departure in sound from the electronic-influenced stuff I expected. It is a delight!”
The record was well received, especially in England, where Simon Turner wrote a review for Melody Maker (27/8/1988) in which he interpreted the intentions of the album superbly and in the meantime explained the meaning of the title ‘Dummy’:
“In common with other Europeans, in particular Can, Trespassers W sound most peculiarly alien. They possess an otherness not specially by “style” or “content” but by a subtler mis-shapeness that refuses to correspond to the demands of ease.
In texture, they possess an angular edginess akin to masochism –a refusal to accept comforts that might deny the “truth” of life. In this they’re consistant with much which is willfully abrasive, but TW temper their discordant wiriness with purposeful play.
“Dummy” has a clownish misery – the sad hilarity of Harold Lloyd or Chaplin – that often tickles an intense melancholy nerve. And if their dedication to Faas Wilkes “the best Dutch dummy passer ever” seems plain daft, then understand that “dummy passes” are the footballing equivalent of TW’s musical trickery.
“There was a war on with reality, I couldn’t care less for the absolute beginners from the petty bourgeoisie, but I did fancy the maid, as played by Anna Karina in Vadim’s film ‘La Ronde’.” Here words don’t much correspond to “sense” as it is largely understood, yet the senses they make are enveloping. They illuminate known reality. TW seem to embody and justify the idea that insanity is wisdom.
In this they recall Joseph Beuys, and before him, the Dadaists’ “anti-art”. TW share with them a love of life that is currently also baffled and horrified-and counters its own confusion with nonsense and irrational ritual.”
The Dummy double-LP was presented on the 23th of april 1988 at the Korzo Theatre in The Hague, then located at an old schoolhouse in the St. Jacobstraat.
The record was sold out within three months.
Trespassers W’s line-up at the time was: Cor Gout (vocals), Lukas Simonis (guitar), Hayo den Boeft (bass), Frank van den Bos (keyboards), Ronnie Krepel (drums)
The early eighties saw the rise of several new forms of networking between ‘underground’ artists from different disciplines. The most basic form of this phenomenon was ‘mail-art’. Artists sent pieces of art to be completed by colleagues who were ‘on the same wavelength’ or to be added to by others, so to produce a collective artwork. These products featured mostly graphic arts and layout, but also writing and optical artforms. Halfway through the eighties this circuit started to include music, in separate projects (cassettes, compilation-LP’s) or connected with the old mail-art-booklets or objects.
Trespassers W, having started as a magazine and cultural unit for ‘border-crossing’ (trespassing!) arts, always had contacts with this mail-art/mail-music-networks and after the band had been formed there were always invitations to contribute to compilations, in some cases based on a political (Intifada: Konkurrent LP, Noise Against Repression: NAR-LP), ecological (Und die Baüme die warten/And the trees are waiting: NG Medien-cassette) or artistic (Ode to Samantah Fox: Insane-cassette, Icare: Orcadia Machina-cassette) theme.
The musical and graphic networking turned out to be very productive. Many people from the old ‘scene’ continued to help one another release cassettes and records, organize concerts and tours and play with similar minded bands, on stage or in the studio.The second cd of the package consists of Trespassers W tracks for compilations which came out of this strange but fruitful artworld.
