Without wanting to be dramatic, a confrontation with the transience of life can be the starting point for a light-hearted guitar pop album. The third album by Amsterdam based The Slow Clock has been released on March 3, 2022. ‘The Origin of Air Quotes’ contains 14 tracks, including the previously released single ‘Monumental’.
This is the story: Last spring a good Samaritan found me bleeding and unconscious along one of Amsterdam’s canals. He called 112 (the Dutch equivalant of 911, just so you know) and not long after I was taken into an ambulance. As I slowly regained my senses in the hospital, I was plagued by persistent melodies in addition to the dizzying headache. It was unclear where they came from, they sounded familiar but it was somehow obvious that it wasn’t based on existing music.
In order to get the stubborn sounds out of my system and to give my bruised brain a rest, I recorded them one by one on my telephone in the Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis. After my discharge from the hospital, I immediately went into my home studio – against doctor’s orders – and recorded the dozens of melodies as best as I could with bass, guitar, keyboard and drum computer. With lyrics that arose from the rippling conversations of my fellow patients, the sounds I heard during the MRI scan and fragments from a life flashing by. I eventually reduced the abundance of recordings to a clear selection of 14 songs: ‘The Origin of Air Quotes’.
Since the release of my punk band’s debut album, GDVRDGDVR, has been delayed time and again (due to obvious reasons), I think this is a good time to launch something new under the moniker The Slow Clock. After all, the last time was in 2020, in which I launched ten EPs. Music journalist Klaas Knooihuizen even devoted a large part of his column in the renowed music magazine OOR to it: “It would be an exaggeration to say that I would not have made it to the end of the exhaustingly boring corona summer without Harmen Kuiper alias The Slow Clock, it certainly helped that he released a new EP on the worldwide internet every week. It is boundless creative music.” I certainly hope this album is also appreciated. Not only by Klaas per se, but by everyone with a preference for idiosyncratic home craft music.
Cheers,
Harmen Kuiper a.k.a. The Slow Clock
e-mail: chinup@chinthefuckup.com
instagram: @theslowclock
spotify: https://tinyurl.com/The-Slow-Spotify
bandcamp: https://chinup.bandcamp.com
www. http://www.chinthefuckup.com/the-slow-clock/