mark's comments on
Mark Spybey & Niels van Hoorn present...
De Klaverland Klompen Voetbal Club


The pair met several years ago when Niels was playing with The Legendary Pink Dots in Vancouver and they immediately struck up a friendship. In December 1999, Spybey moved back to Europe and settled in with the Van Hoorn family, deep in rural Holland, close to the city of Nijmegen, where he lived for six months prior to settling in London.

Niels is a veteran of the Dutch music scene, first playing with the band Liberty in the late sixties, subsequently with the avant garde ensemble S.E.M, studying Sonology. By the time he joined The Legendary Pink Dots, over ten years ago, he had played with many bands and artists in Holland. His playing is melodic and innovative. He uses wind synthesizers in addition to saxophones and flutes. Niels is noted for his exuberant stage performance, often playing two saxophones at the same time and invariably walking into the crowd during the set. He has toured both the USA and Europe regularly with The Legendary Pink Dots appearing on 10 albums. He has also recorded with The Teargarden, the collaborative project between Skinny Puppy/Download and The Legendary Pink Dots. In 2000, Niels played concerts with Spybey as part of Dead Voices In Air.

Spybey has recorded eight albums as Dead Voices On Air and three as Propeller. He was a member of Zoviet-France and later a founding member of Download. More recently, he joined Sofortkontakt!, the group formed by the late Can guitarist Michael Karoli, appearing throughout Europe with the rest of the Can solo projects during the bands 30th anniversary celebrations. He also toured with Damo Suzuki (ex-Can vocalist) and Michael Karoli in the USA in 1999 and performed with them in London in 2001. He has toured with Michael Rother (Neu!, Kraftwerk, Harmonia) and Dieter Moebius (Cluster, Harmonia). He has worked with Faust, Genesis.P.Orridge, The Teargarden, James Plotkin, Mick Harris, Martin Atkins, Jarboe from The Swans and Not Breathing amongst others, appearing on over 40 releases. During 2000, Spybey played 100 concerts throughout North America and Europe. He is currently working with Shaun Wilson, a guitarist and singer from London and preparing an album with Robin Storey, another ex-member of Zoviet-France who works under the name of Rapoon.

"Someone from The Legendary Pink Dots once remarked that when Niels formed a solo project, it would be the most abstract, or "avant-garde" thing to come out of the band. So, we're playing in the studio and Niels plays a line on his saxophone and I sample it. I twist the sample by effecting it and play it back. Niels keeps playing, listening to the sample and improvising around the theme. I sample him again and it goes on. We've spent hours doing this. Finally throwing the tapes into a blender and refining what we've recorded with digital editing techniques. But the essence of the music, the inspiration comes from the playing of Niels. It's music motivated by the saxophone, which is an overlooked instrument. Often simply used to provide melodic "pleasantness." A solo or a rhythmical gesture. Whole songs have been constructed ( or rather "deconstructed" ) from pieces that Niels has played. It's a real honour to play with someone who has such an intimate knowledge of his craft and can share that so engagingly with others. Lot's of fun. "

De Klaverland Kloempen Voetbal Club was assembled by Mark Spybey from hours of recordings made in the studio and on location in the nature reserve of Klaverland, where Niels has lived for over 25 years. The recording is an homage to both the playing of Niels, his love of jazz, the blues and the landscape within which it was created. Sounds were obtained from diverse sources: river boats, mice scampering in the roof of the studio, klaxon horns from a neighbouring shipyard and the sound of a generator. They were treated much in the same way as the wind instruments, processed, sampled and edited using a conceptual framework devised by the pair. The cd comes with annotated notes, written by a variety of collaborators, telling the story of how this cd was made.


back to De Klaverland Kloempen Voetbal Club
back to the releases