Dutch musician Benjamin van Vliet has released two albums by his Microwolf project at once: a live one, Claptrap, and West of, a collection of odds and ends. He is been a vital member of the lo-fi underground scene, a musician's musician who mixes folk with Krautrock and dream pop. He doesn't shy away from getting atonal at times, throwing a spanner in the mix to catch the listener off guard.
Dutch musician Benjamin van Vliet recently became a father and that life changing event is all over his new Changelings by his Microwolf project. Rest assured: he is not singing about diapers or making coo-coo sounds. If anything Changelings is a showcase of lo-fi avant-folk with six meandering songs that give new meaning to a "free-flowing" approach. He reached out to fellow underground musicians, inviting them to pitch in with their own ideas and create a canvas of intricate sounds, licks, beeps and purrs.
There is bit of jazz in there, a whiff of atonal indie, Krautrock and Jim White-inspired Americana. Van Vliet is never in a hurry, staying calm in the midst of a bunch of musicians who are enjoying themselves immensely and exploring every weird idea that comes the mind. Anarchic and liberating, this is an album that is both challenging and captivating.
Dutch musician Benjamin van Vliet has made a video for Life That Wills, a track from his forthcoming new album Changelings by his one-man project Microwolf: "Romke Burger added a flute, Harold Konickx handled backing vocals, and Joachim Badenhorst supplied the subtle percussion. It is a piece of lo-fi avant-folk about coming to grips with being a father".
Dutch musician Benjamin van Vliet has released Life That Wills another single from his new album Changelings by his one-man project Microwolf. Romke Burger added a flute, Harold Konickx handled backing vocals, and Joachim Badenhorst supplied the subtle percussion. It is a piece of lo-fi avant-folk about coming to grips with being a father.
Dutch musician Benjamin van Vliet is back with a new single from his one-man project Microwolf. Burning Crops is a lo-fi avant-jazz excursion with elements of folk and triphop. With the aid of Romke Burger (saxophone), Jarno van Es (Fender Rhodes, percussion and bells) and his Microplaza band mate Arno Breuer (additional guitar) he has created a tapestry of sounds, flowing around his subdued vocals. Van Vliet's compositions are like filigree. They might appear fragile, but they are actually quite sturdy.
Read The Room is the third release by Microplaza, an experimental indie-pop duo project by Dutch musicians Benjamin van Vliet (Microwolf) and Arno Breuer (Pino Plaza, Sven Agaath). And just like their previous efforts, the self-titled debut and We'll Never Fit In This Poem Together, it is a concise mini-suite of songs - five of them - that take less than 10 minutes to digest. To get to the core however, it will require multiple spins to fully appreciate the textures, highly economical lyrics and all the sounds that they have sprinkled on top.
By picking a 5/4 offbeat - it's easy to remember by saying out loud a short sentence with five syllables like "I hate the Eagles" - the songs get a jumpy feel, slightly disturbing but in a good way. To broaden their lo-fi sound they used a children's choir, added a lonesome trumpet courtesy of Noël Hofman and called upon Stefan Breuer to lay down some synths. The ubiquity of the pandemic shimmers through, with all the worries, hopes and fears, but the songs on Read The Room mostly looks inwards, as Van Vliet and Breuer try to deal with it, wondering if some things will be fundamentally changed after it's all over and the book on COVID-19 can be closed.
Dutch musician Benjamin van Vliet is a collector of sounds and he uses plenty of them on his new album My Cauliflower Ears by his one-man project Microwolf. It's a genre-defying album, with elements of folk, Krautrock and avant-garde, all served up at a leisurely pace.
His vocals hover slightly his intricate musical tapestries, telling autobiographical stories in almost off-handed way. Van Vliet's mastery as a craftsman to stitch together his compositions comes to the fore even more with the instrumental version of the album. He used a different running order, although he choose not include the soft post-industrial pull of Sad Collector. My Cauliflower Ears is an intriguing piece of work that will appeal to fans of adventurous lo-fi and avant-garde. It gently buzzes and tunnels its way into the brain when using headphones, killing off any trace of lingering ear-worms in the process.
Microplaza, an experimental indie-pop project by Dutch musicians Benjamin van Vliet (Microwolf) and Arno Breuer (Pino Plaza, Sven Agaath), are back with their second EP, We'll Never Fit In This Poem Together. It is an apt title the for the six songs they put together for this release: dreamy, flowing music with lyrics that are poetic and slightly mysterious.
They paint complex sonic pictures, sometimes aided by more members of the Breuer family acting as a choir. There are spaces in the music, that act like bubbles - blink and you'll miss 'em. Microplaza are like Radiohead at their most mellow, and fellow Dutch act I Am Oak minus the folk idiom. If Lewis Caroll had been in a band, this is what they would have sounded like.
Microplaza, an off-kilter indie pop project by Dutch musicians Benjamin van Vliet (Microwolf) and Arno Breuer (Pino Plaza, Sven Agaath), will release their second EP, We'll Never Fit In This Poem Together, on 7" vinyl (very limited - 30 copies) on Tiny Room Records. This duo does not sound like any other act, or more accurately a dozen others acts at the same time. They made a video for the lead single Through The Fabric.
Microplaza is a genre-defying project by Dutch musicians Benjamin van Vliet (Microwolf) and Arno Breuer (Pino Plaza, Sven Agaath) made a self-titled EP with five off-kilter tunes. Think adventurous phrasing, weird effects and shifting rhythms - catchy as Hell in a geeky way. It's all over in a little under 8 minutes, after which it's quite alright to have a What The Fuck moment and try again to make sense of it all. Or just go with the flow with this mini-album from the flourishing underground scene in the Netherlands.
