Rooie Waas

While called upon the music of Rooie Waas, there are certain people that really begin to see red. Perhaps the neighbours, as in the the track de Buren, opening the third, self-titled album. The raw, hit-and run strobe-like noise particles, the concrete heavy beats and the deceptively simple lyrics that creep under your skin, might well rub people the wrong way, but they also have a liberating katharsis-like implication to them. The bizarre world of Rooie Waas is full of a certain pleasure while still raising the hair on the back of your neck. Indeed the music shows the whole pop-world-truth in an ugly fluorescent light and lifts mundane dutch expressions into abstract barrages of loose words. Genius or plain silly, often theres only a fine line in between. The steely squareness of the past records has somewhat subdued, surely by the increased influence of Gerri Jaeger, the drummer known from bands like Knalpot and Naked Wolf. Singer/poet Gijs Borstlap and electronica wizard Mikael Szafirowski have integrated him to form an illustrious unit, propelling their music towards an increasingly insane and musical sound.On the third album the drums are still programmed, maybe we are to expect a live feel on the next one. In any case : the new lp is again an dizzyingly impressive, confronting, uncompromising and strange experience.