The Slow Clock: Gaze At The Raisin

Dutch singer and guitarist Harmen Kuiper once again has wrapped himself in the cape of his one-man band The Slow Clock. On Gaze At The Raisin he covers a lot of ground within the space of half an hour: 16 tracks about beekeeping, preparing for the apocalypse, secret handshakes, cancel culture, politics, love, and the supposedly healing powers of dried grapes.

His knack for coming up with intricate melodies and serve them as on point lo-fi psych-pop songs is in full force, with actress and musician Amarins Romkema helping out to smooth things over just a bit. The percussion is so dry that having a choice beverage on hand is probably a good idea.

The Slow Clock: Interpretative Dancing

Dutch singer and guitarist Harmen Kuiper is back with a new album by his one-man band The Slow Clock Interpretative Dancing, a collection of songs about everyday troubles, like feeling feeling self-conscious and a little bit lost (Fire Up The Barbecue) or navigating the minefield of using the right words so nobody gets insulted (Lost In Autocorrect). It is an album for introverts, who like No Ninja Am I, Jonathan Richman and Elliot Smith.

Kuiper invited scriptwriter, actress and musician Amarins Romkema to help him out with the vocals. It worked like a charm - she adds colour to his distanced vocal delivery. Her solo spot is a tongue-in-cheek song for the holiday season, the appropriately titled Christmas In A Bottle. It is a time of the year where either loneliness or the foresight of an awkward diner drives many people to drink deep. And that might lead to free-from moves that can be accompanied by the rumbling bass of the title track with a bit of Pixies-inspired guitar as the icing on the cake.

The Slow Clock: The Origin of Air Quotes

Singer and guitarist Harmen Kuiper was found hurt and bleeding in Amsterdam last Spring and was rushed to hospital. He woke up with a headache from Hell and for some reason also a bunch of melodies that he managed to capture on his phone. He revived his one-man outlet The Slow Clock for a new album, The Origin of Air Quotes, to share what he heard that night. It is a collection of catchy, off-kilter guitar songs He reinvents as a man who is hunting down an unnamed adversary in This Is Not A Good Time, comes clean about Janet Jackson, his high school crush, in Win some win some more, and goes for low budget Pixies-alike noise rock in Romanticized in Hindsight.

The title track, The Origin of Air Quotes, cuts to the chase by calling that phenomenon as an excuse to tell lies. He saved the best for last. Sky High is a pastoral song with multi-layered vocals about a man who hopes to escape from his troubles by making a trip in a hot air balloon. And for less than two minutes his dreams are fulfilled, with the journey living up to his expectations.

The Slow Clock: The Slow Clock Two

Harmen Kuiper, vocalist and rhythm guitarist with indie band Chinup, revisited his one-man project The Slow Clock for another album of happy sad songs. The Slow Clock Two is part Syd Barrett, part hip-hop, part electronic pop and part good old guitar rock. Kuiper has a knack for composing short and bittersweet songs, tipped off with dark humour. Whether it is about (time) travel in Slowly But Surely or going your own way in Turning Up The Crank Handle, Kuiper's laconic delivery always blends in seamlessly with his guitar, synths and sometimes downright cheesy but highly effective drum machine patterns.

The album closes with a sprawling slow percussive drone piece. Don't You Wanna Join That Number is a mix of slowed down industrial pioneers Kiem and the weirdness of The Beatles' Revolution 9. If Doctor Who was a musician, he would probably sound like The Slow Clock.