Nits - In the Dutch Mountains (1987 Dutch New-Wave)

After the synthesized hijinks and tomfoolery that blighted much of Henk, the Nits -- once again a four-piece with the addition of bassist Joke Geraets -- opted for a return to simplicity with In the Dutch Mountains. The result was an album that probably did more to seduce listeners far beyond their homeland than any other, not least because it was the first to secure a release in the U.S. and the U.K. Yet although it was recorded live in the studio direct to two-track tape, this is no mere exercise in bash-it-out, one-take boogie. It's a warmly atmospheric set that contains some of the Nits' most fully realized work to date. Many of the songs are inspired by childhood memories, including the title track with its reference to the young Henk Hofstede's assumption that there must be mountains beyond the borders of his home town of Amsterdam. A massive hit across continental Europe, "In the Dutch Mountains" still generates a storm of applause at Nits concerts. Another live mainstay is "J.O.S. Days," an atypically rustic song about Hofstede's failure to make his local football team, featuring sampled acoustic guitar and (real) harmonica. This contrasts sharply with the dreamy "Two Skaters," at around seven minutes one of the longest songs in the Nits' repertoire and as close as they've ever gotten to an exercise in pure atmospherics. Other highlights include "The Swimmer" (yet another in a long line of film references), with frenzied accelerating piano assaults framing a delicate melody; the faintly berserk "An Eating House"; and the gorgeous lullaby "Good Night," with Hofstede's tender vocals cushioned by a remarkably convincing brass band sample. On the vinyl edition, this made for a wonderful coda to the album, but for the CD release three bonus tracks -- none of them quite in keeping with the rest -- were tacked onto the end. Nevertheless, In the Dutch Mountains marked the beginning of a richly creative five-year period that the Nits have yet to top.

AMG Review by Christopher Evans

Nits - Omsk (1983 Dutch Indie Rock)

The parallels between the careers of XTC and the Nits are remarkable and too numerous to ignore. Both began their recording careers in the late '70s as part of the arty post-punk new wave movement characterized by scratchy guitars, jerky rhythms, cheesy organs, and nerdy frontmen. And both evolved into something infinitely more complex and enduring, despite being gradually whittled down to a core of just two members. That said, whereas XTC underwent a gradual transition from the fractious pop of 1977's White Music to the pastoral psychedelia of 1986's Skylarking, the Nits shed their new wave skin in a relative trice with the 1983 album Omsk. The startling opener, "A Touch of Henry Moore," begins with a mesmerizing, Steve Reich-like barrage of marimbas and (synthesized) hammered metal over which Henk Hofstede ponders the physical hard labor that goes into creating a thing of beauty. One of the most stunningly original pieces in the Nits' repertoire, it's still a stage favorite. At the time, the Nits also boasted a second singer/songwriter in the form of Michiel Peters, who contributes three songs to Omsk. He was no Colin Moulding, however, and his first song on the album provides a rare and unwelcome reminder of the kind of music the public was gorging on in 1983. "Unpleasant Surprise" is just that, a horrible exercise in Spandau Duran, all brash synths and big drums, while "The Cold Eye" is a contrived exercise in atmospherics let down by Peters' thin, reedy voice. Only the surprisingly rootsy "Spirits Awake," with its spooky Wicker Man vibe, is a worthy addition to the album, and it was probably a blessing all round when Peters left the band within two years. Keyboard player Robert Jan Stips -- who must take a lot of the credit for the album's lush textures -- also contributes a couple of tracks to Omsk, most notably the irresistibly breezy instrumental "Walter and Conny," which pushes some of the same buttons as Zappa's "Peaches en Regalia." But the Nits were already essentially Hofstede's band, and Omsk contains one of his most enduring songs in the form of "Nescio." With its serried ranks of frenziedly strummed mandolins, pizzicato strings, and cascading piano, "Nescio" finds Hofstede milking the song's larger than life Latin emotions to stirring effect -- though disconcertingly the title refers to the nom de plume of an obscure Dutch writer. At the other extreme is the delicate "Jardin d'Hiver." This attempt to capture the sparkling stillness of a winter's day is another of Hofstede's most bewitching songs. Traceries of vibraphones, piano, and strings intertwine with a series of short vocal lines to suggest the chiming of bells. Though it's not without its moments of clumsiness, Omsk contains enough examples of what would prove to be the Nits' mature style to make it worthy of investigation.

AMG Review by Christopher Evans

Nits - Henk/Kilo (1986/1983 New Wave)

After the mighty leap forward that was Omsk, the Nits wasted little time in recording the mini-album Kilo, released just six months later. Again, songwriting was divided between Hofstede, Peters, and newcomer Stips, and again Hofstede established himself as an inspired melodist with the dramatically orchestrated "Sketches of Spain" and the wryly nostalgic "Dapper Street" -- a remarkably beautiful song that would now surely be acknowledged as a classic if only it had had the name Elvis Costello attached to it. Unlike Omsk, however, this time the contributions of Peters and Stips measure up to their leader's. Peters' "Bild Am Sonntag (As Usual)," with its tick-tock rhythm underpinning one of the band's rare forays into vocal harmony, is a dreamily ominous song about small-town boredom turning sour. Stips' "Memories Are New (III)" has a languid South American feel buoyed by nylon guitars, vibraphones, and rippling piano, and is only let down by Stips' rather colorless vocals. Oddly, though, it's Hofstede who supplies Kilo's weakest track, the closing "Your Next Tyres," which sounds like a leftover from the band's self-consciously quirky period. The band's production throughout is lush and spacious, with Stips' distinctive multi-layered keyboards providing the illusion of a much bigger band without ever lapsing into the kind of synthesized overkill that makes so many recordings from the early '80s so easy to date and hard to listen to. [Kilo was reissued on CD as a two-fer with the 1986 album Henk.]

Henk was the first album to be recorded by the Nits as a three-piece following the traumatic departure of Michiel Peters, yet it found them in an unexpectedly playful mood. From the eccentric openers "Bike in Head" and "Port of Amsterdam," it was clear that the bandmembers were once more in control of their own destiny and would have no truck with pleas to emphasize their more commercially viable songs. "Bike in Head," for instance, deploys samples of bicycle bells and includes the lyric "I just bought an elephant today," while "Port of Amsterdam" is a rambunctious drinking song in which Hofstede's voice is subjected to all manner of wacky electronic distortion. But for all its often wilful eccentricity, Henk does contain a core of enduring songs that marry the band's pop sensibility with its more experimental tendencies. On the first, "Typist of Candy," Hofstede's touching, double-tracked voice recalls the Everly Brothers, though any retro intent is canceled by a beguiling climax featuring Robert Jan Stips' fairground keyboards and what sounds like someone tap dancing on a typewriter. "Home Before Dark" is an altogether more somber affair, the album's single foray into understatement and one whose directness and simplicity foreshadow Henk's successor, In the Dutch Mountains. "Sleep (What Happens to Your Eyes)" survives a tricky synth arrangement to become one of the Nits' most persuasive blends of melody and electronica, while the irresistible "Cabins" sets Philip Glass to a four-square beat. Too much of the rest, however, is quirky in a bad way. More than once, you suspect Stips and his fancy new sampling equipment were allowed to run riot, dressing up already slender songs with eldritch noises that began to date as soon as the record hit the shops. The CD reissue is filled out with the 1983 mini-album Kilo, none of which has dated as badly as Henk.

AMG Review by Christopher Evans

Nits - Urk (Live in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Moscow 1988-1989)

Anyone looking for a convenient summary of the Nits' work from the '80s could do worse than check out this superbly recorded live double CD. Over two hours and 29 tracks you can trace their progress from bug-eyed new wave types to master songsmiths, still with an eye to pushing envelopes and confounding expectations. And there's no need to worry about how well the band reproduces its studio creations before an audience, either. As the 1987 album In the Dutch Mountains proved, for all their concern with texture and detail the four members of the Nits were capable of producing a lushly sculpted sound without the need for overdubbing or armies of session musicians. That said, the most heart-stopping moment of Urk comes with an ingenious reworking of the memorable 1984 song "Mask," featuring an elegantly extended introduction by the Amsterdam Saxophone Quartet. Given that a casual listener might assume the Nits to be a dourly serious bunch of art rockers, Urk contains no shortage of the (strictly musical) humor that invariably forms an important part of a typical Nits concert. It also features an early sighting of what was to become something of a concert tradition, with the band congregating at the front of the stage around Robert Jan Stips' accordion and Henk Hofstede's acoustic guitar for a few campfire renditions of classics like "Adieu Sweet Bahnhof" and "Panorama Man." Urk was also important in the Nits' development in that it marked their earliest venture away from the world of sweaty clubs and into the rarefied atmosphere of Holland's theaters, where for the first time they were guaranteed a more sophisticated and attentive audience. After the tour, bassist Joke Geraets was sadly forced to leave the band owing to the onset of a muscle-wasting disease.

AMG Review by Christopher Evans