LEAPING THE CHASM (CD)

TRESPASSERS W
LEAPING THE CHASM (CD)

Line-up:

Cor Gout: vocals, log, tapes
Lukas Simonis: guitar, keyboards, ukulele, mandolin, percussion
Ronnie Krepel: contrabass, organ, keyboards, drums, banjo, percussion, flute
Peter Bos: guitar, drums, backing vocals
Frans Friederich: fluegelhorn, samples, mix, euphonium, korg, radio, R8, handclaps, trumpet, children xylophone, backing vocals
Wim Oudijk: keyboards, samples, backing vocals
Jeffrey Bruisma: violin
Rob Langendijk: contrabass
Boz de Kler: accordion
Hayo Doorn: vocals, assemblage, bodysounds
Henk Baker: bass clarinet
Hayo den Boeft: keyboards, backing vocals
Colin McClure: Sousaphone, vocals
Gabriel Steens: bassoon
Alain Neffe: senza, samples, percussion
Nadine Bal: vocals
Dolf Planteijt: bass, guitar
Cor Hoogerdijk: drums

Various titles recorded, engineered and produced by (see the sleeve to know who do what):
Camille Dings, and Cor Gout, Ronnie Krepel, Frans Friederich, Wim Oudijk, Guus van Leeuwen, Alain Neffe, Henk Baker ; with assistance from Lukas Simonis, Peter Bos and Hayo Doorn.

Special thanks to: Van Dyke Parks, Claude Debussy, Attila the Stockbroker,
Ladzi Galaï, Camille Dings.

Front cover photo: « Leaping the chasm at Stand Rock, Wisconsin Dells, 1887. »
Photograph by Henry Hamilton Benhett © Fotofolio, NY.

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Reviews in English: 7              Chronique en français : 1___________________________________________________________________________

ZOOP #17, Alternativ’ Zine, France, 2001
par FLORENT MERCIER :

Trespassers W
« Leaping the Chasm » (Organic)

Concept-album célébrant la fin du XXe siècle. Essayer de décrire une telle musique à chaud serait une erreur tant musiques, émotions, arrangements textes et voix (du prolifique parolier/chanteur Cor Gout) ne font qu’un. Parfois monotone, parfois riche et harmonieux, c’est une constante évolution qui nous est donnée à voir et à écouter au fil de cet album que je vais devoir ré-écouter abondamment avant de pouvoir écrire une chronique (non-)définitive. C’est lorsque le cérébral et le sentimental sont au rendez-vous, on se rend compte de l’importance de l’auditif, bien sûr… C’est chose devenue si rare… Dans l’immédiat, jugez par vous-même, cela m’évitera de dire portnawak ! Il n’est plus besoin d’attribuer de mention aux Trespassers W de toute façon. Ils resteront dans les annales comme une des formations rock-expérimental (d’ailleurs plurielle, vu qu’on ne retrouve jamais exactement les mêmes) les plus innovatrices de notre époque. Trop de monde a été invité ici pour entrer dans le détail ; dire que tous les musiciens qui ont participé à l’expérience T.W. jusqu’alors sont présents, devrait offrir une idée suffisante quant à la richesse et à la qualité de ce disque. Un Must.

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TROUW (daily newspaper/national) 09/03/2000
by STAN RIJVEN:

Willem Vermandere and Cor Gout catch the world in musical mitiatures
(Translated from Dutch to English)

The world of pop is full of paradoxes. Represented as a big house, the mainstream-pop has taken possession of the hall and the living room, while the marginals occupy parts of the attic permanently.
It’s somewhere up there that these loners found a place.
Although they are just as entitled to speak as the persons living downstairs, their voices hardly pervade the noise in the ground-door flat.
Often they form the consciousness, literally and metaphorically speaking ‘the upstairs room’ (= a Dutch metaphor for ‘the brains’) of what’s happening beneath them.
Both the Belgian bard Willem Vermandere and the Hague group Trespassers W belong to this category. Both just released intriguing CD’s, which after repeated listening get deeper and broader all the time.
Willem Vermandere’s ‘Onderweg’ and ‘Leaping the Chasm’ by Trespassers W present the ideal combination of book and record.
They are concept albums, full of poetical observations, which, with philosophical bias, catch the world around us in musical miniatures.
Both musicians are outsiders. Vermandere in the culture of the countryside, Trespassers W in the urbanized Holland Randstad. Both of them are storytellers who know how to ‘kidnap’ the listener with a few sentences and a few cunning notes en take them to another, to their own universe.
(…)
‘On your way you are a gypsie, you travel and don’t look back’ (Vermandere).
That line could be the creed of Cor Gout, the moving spirit behind Trespassers W. He is a publicist, cultural philosopher, composer, singer and situationist in one, the group Trespassers W the vehicle to give shape to his ideas. In all his records, the echo of three themes is heard. The nostalgicly tinted life of entertainment of Mondain Den Haag (also the title of a magazine, published on his own) with references to entertainment centres like The Scala and Heck’s, or street characters like the Chinese Candyman. Besides, developments in 20th Century Europe (Budapest and Berlin, an ode to the painter Munch) always play a part in his songs. And finally Gout’s attention for popular culture, notably pop and football (with Faas Wilkes as his biggest hero).
On ‘Leaping the Chasm’ all these lines come together cunningly.
Departing from the Scheveningen lighthouse, ‘feeding the citizens in their sleep with dreams and fantasies’, Gout mixes childhood memories of his (grand)father with the music of Mahler and strolls with the author Beckett. In the meantime memories of the last living dodo, Betsy the Elephant (a legendary inhabitant of the old Hague Zoo), president Sukarno, football player Gascoigne, a child’s saddle and the similarity between Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague get a chance in an absurd, but no less logical manner.
All the time the lyris have been framed by a competely new arrangement. Samples, rock guitars and unusual instruments like the euphonium (a bugle with 5 valves) provide the lyrics with adequate footnotes. Quite rightly ‘Leaping the Chasm’ is a concept album, that never annoys but offers new perspectives all the time. The all deciding song of Cor Gout harmonizes wondefully well with this mosaic of themes. Now decisive, then hesitant, humorous, then again romantic, he reflects the contents as a singing storyteller.
A daring record, which fulfills the title in more than one sense. Leaping the Chasm Trespassers W fills up the distance between upstairs room and living room with all the daredevilry that comes with it.
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LIVE XS, march 2000, volume 3, issue 3
FRET, march 2000, volume 7, issue 1 (almost the same contents)
by ROEL BOUMAN:

Local Heroes/Trespassers W
(Translated from Dutch to English)

Trespassers W is the group, formed around Cor Gout, a Hague singer/poet/performer/lyricist etc. After almost 16 years of self-willed, but very fascinating music, it’s about time that there will be a bit of attention outside the circle of a handfull of conoisseurs.
In times when there’s appreciation for De Kift everywhere, it’s not right that Trespassers W is neglected any longer.
Especially since the TW-collective sounds more approachable all the time and in the year ‘now’ there’s more and more room for a pleasant kind of nostalgia.
For this CD Gout called back all the important members from the history of the band. That way a remarkably varied album came into being, which still doesn’t sound fragmented, but in all its splendour fascinates the listener over the full 69 minutes. Thrilling music, extraordinary lyrics. Don’t let it stick to in-fill once again!
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PLATENBLAD 80, March 31 mai 3 2000
by WIM VAN CLEEF:

And new…Trespassers W, Leaping the Chasm (Organic)
(Translated from Dutch to English)

Trespassers W is a group which has a history of more than 15 years. The constact factor of the group exists of one person: singer/performer/publicist Cor Gout. In its existence TW released innumerable LP’s, cassettes, EP’s, CD’s and papers. Among the musical activities are co-operations with friendly musicians, authors and graphic artists. Only recently the group payed a tribute to the fishing village of Scheveningen and also Gout was the Rotterdam Improvisation Pool (R:IP)’s guest for a couple of performances, inspired by the father figure of Dutch anarchism, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis. The new CD Leaping the Chasm stands apart from this, but then again not completely. On the CD for instance Frans Friederich (R:IP) renders important offerings as a composer and as a musician, playing, among other instruments, trumpet and keyboards; besides the guitar tandem Planteijdt (Morzelpronk) surface in a couple of songs. Fortunately the music of TW withdraws from any categorization. The songs reveal associations though: recounting folk, Peter Hammill, Kurt Weill, Gavin Friday, while even a borrowed fragment from Vandyke Park’s Song Cycle passes by for a bit. TW is situated in the tradition of the European art of song. Gout expresses his esteem for people like Jacques Brel by dissociating himself from all too tangible references. The sound of TW knots together with modern-day improvised music, sound-sculptures, samples and electronic experiments. Song by song the instrumentation rather diverges: in a triplet of songs about lighthouse keepers the sound jumps from rock, via Vandyke Parks to recounting folk, while a couple of songs deal with a sort of social misfits (letter to grandpa sent drom a mental institution, the ghostly Pages from Mahler’s Diary, the revenging Waitress). Between times an unrecognizable cover of Effervescent elephant of Syd Barrett and the typewriter-pulse of Tears of the Dodo. There’s also a big-city-blues and the guitar-steamroller of the Planteijdts in an assembly which reminds us of John Zorn. In the song Beckett Dies the subject-matter is not the character of the author Beckett, but Beckett’s thought. Maybe Gout can explain to me that in the case of Gazza the subject is Paul Gascoigne’s thought instead of anything else. Anyway, TW creates its own rules and with Leaping the Chasm it has made a strong, very diversified album (unfortunately only on CD).
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STAGE, 6th volume, #58, februari 17, 2000
by JEMPI SAMYN:

Trespassers W-Leaping the Chasm- Organic/De Konkurrent
(Translated from Dutch to English)

We travel to learn. Listening to the music of Trespassers W, it is like we are constantly on our way to faraway, quite desolate places, but sometimes also frightfully close, up into and including our own minds, even though we wouldn’t like to admit that. Nevertheless we can learn a lot from this, if only we try hard enough. The Hague singer-philosopher-lyricist Cor Gout hereby lends us a helping hand with his sometimes enigmatic compositions, which carry us along on a strange voyage of discovery not only in space, but also in time. We undertake walking trips from the restless coasts of the low countries up to countries like Russia, Indonesia and even 17th century Mauritius, when the dodo, that bizarre, big walker, still lived there. For a while we stop for a cup of coffee at the station buffet of a railway station, where we project ourselves in the mind of a waitress who is tired of being provoked. On our long walking trip we further meet Samuel Beckett and visit the Hague Zoo, where we put flowers on the grave of Betsy the elephant. The whole story, neatly divided into six chapters (‘The Lighthouse’, ‘The Letter’, ‘Holes’, ‘The Survival of the Fittest’, ‘The Chasm’ and ‘The Leap-Don’t look back’), goes in a peculiar atmosphere in which dream and reality can hardly be distinguished from each other and the music evokes the most diverse associations, from Hatfield & The North to Kurt Weill, via the Velvet underground, Boudewijn de Groot, Captain Beefheart and Chris Tile, to name a few. We owe this wide range to the limitless skill and imagination of a select company of instrumentalists which we find here: Ronnie Krepel (contrabass, keyboards, drums, percussion, banjo, flute and strings-arrangements), Peter Bos (guitar, drums, backing vocals), Wouter Planteijdt (guitar), Lukas Simonis (keyboards, guitar, ukelele, mandolin, percussion, arrangements), Rob Langendijk (contrabass), Dolf Planteijdt (guitar, bass), Wim Oudijk and Hayo den Boeft (keyboards, vocals), Frans Friederich (trumpet, fluegelhorn, tuba, xylophone, euphonium, keyboards, vocals, samples, mix), Jeffrey Bruinsma (violin), Bosz de Kler (accordeon), Henk Bakker (bass clarinet, samples), Colin McLure (sousaphone, vocals), Hajo Doorn (bodysounds, vocals), Gabriel Steens (bassoon), Alain Neffe (samples, percussion) and Cor Hoogerdijk (drums, vocals). And in case you love to e-mail: trespassersw@planet.nl!
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OPSCENE #76, april/mai 2000
By GUTTER HEIJTING:

Trespassers W, Leaping the Chasm (Organic/Konkurrent)
(Translated from Dutch to English)

A photo-book of the 20th century it has become, just like Friederich’s Recyclopedia-series. Cor Gout’s songs are stories: poetic and sad or melancholic, absurdistic or with a magic flavour.
Sometimes they are autobiographicly coloured snapshots of life in the Holland Randstad, sometimes ficticious portraits. The daydreaming waitress of the station buffet, the lonely last dodo, they are catchy images that stick with you for a long time. From 1987 onwards, over twenty musicians have been involved in this project with even more instruments, among which mandolin and banjo, euphonium, sousaphone and tuba, violin and Korg. Musically rich- and many-coloured the result has become, full of surprising inventions and harmonies. A timeless jewel.
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GONZO CIRCUS 44, mai 2000
By PIETER MALLIET:

Three times Trespassers W
(Translated from Dutch to English)

Trespassers W- Leaping the Chasm (Trespassers W/Organic)
Het Woord Aan F. Starik
Het Woord Aan Moritz Ebinger
(Trespassers W)

Trespassers W with as its pivot the Dutch singer, philosopher and adjoining lyricist Cor Gout, stands for an artists collective and for a multi-media publishing company as well. Besides Frans Friederich’s ‘Recyclopedia’ (see Gonzo Circus 41) this association also publishes the series ‘Het woord Aan’, in which each time a different artist can do his thing. January 2000 provided the 3d and 4th publications of the series which combines word, image and sound.
Respectively F. Starik, who lays emphasis on the word in ‘Big Fish’ and Moritz Ebinger (‘In the land of the deaf one voice is king’) who highlights the music, were given the word.
Not long before that the CD ‘Leaping the Chasm’ by the group Trespassers W saw the light of day. Common element in everything to which Cor Gout puts his hand, is the simultaneously releasing of different media, in which the message has been packed up on a subvocal, subrational level.
This message is such that it cannot be put into words. After all it’s about a totality of impressions (visual, auditive and intellectual) which brings about one total unspeakable sensation with the reader/listener/auditor. This mode of communication in which reason, on the look-out for logical connections, has been sidetracked, is embedded in a long cultural historical tradition (the method is somewhat comparable to the impressionistic mode of painting).
For the time being a review of ‘Leaping the Chasm’ can only indicate the ingredients with which Trespassers W have been working.
This album shows the structure of a book (with a prologue, six chapters and an epilogue), but it isn’t a book. If a book would have appeared sufficient as a medium, Gout would have written one.
Just like the photograph on the cover, dating back from 1887 (Leaping the Chasm at Stand Rock, Wisconsin Dells) the music contributes to the intended effect.
With the chapter ‘The Lighthouse’ Trespassers W evoke at once a mythical, faiy-tale-like world, in which dream, reality, present and past are placed on one line. The statement is clear: don’t always look for the logical explanation. The rest of the CD brings us, via stories and poetry supported by music, which varies between diverse genres like waltz, chanson and rock, to the most diverse places on earth (The Hague, Russia, Indonesia).
On this voyage we meet Beckett, Mahler, Darwin and Slauerhoff, but also Paul Gascoigne, Betsy the Elephant and a mermaid. In times when no-one doubts the suggestive powers of music, Gout makes it clear that words too are more than just meaning. Herewith he places himself in a tradition which advocates other ways of thinking, which starts with Arthur Rimbaud, passes dadaism and the likes of William Burroughs and again aims for Rimbaud as an end point. Trespassers W take a new step in the process of decoding Rimbaud’s metaphysical poetry. It is a matter of examination of and alerting to the existence of not-linguistic forms of communication (even though words are used).
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AUF ABWEGEN # 29, Sommer 2000
by ZIPPO:

Trespassers W, Leaping the Chasm (Organic)
Sandbox Trio/Beth Custer-Nocturnalis (Frank Mark Arts)
(Translated from Dutch to English)

Open in obscurity could be the device of this couple. Both groups are regular guests on these pages and yet they haven’t become any more tangible, not in the slightest! The Dutch combo Trespassers W for instance, hasn’t renounced its bent for conceptual projects, but instead has exchanged their earlier theatre-music-like arrangements for racy songs. Rattling drums and growling guitars/players-of-wind-instruments-combinations underlie lyrics, which are brought about like a correspondence. A sonorous voice reads letters, of which the answers are partly indicated and partly go under in the cacophonic jumble. Or, the other way around, one seems to receive answers to questions, which have never been posed. After all these years still impossible to categorize.