Onomatopee 38 - NEST #1 : RE: Happy Days
A tribute to lo-fi culture.
The Eindhoven based band The Rose Frustrates consists of producer Mark van der Heijden (Lab van Akoestiek), artist Ramon Hulspas (AE) and curator Michel van Dartel (V2_). As a group, The Rose Frustrates has a lot in common with Onomatopee. Both have their roots in the lo-fi culture of the 90s: in which artists and musicians, by way of home-made analogue cut-and-paste projects, encouraged one another to realise strange, peculiar and original results. But is that culture still alive? In this project, The Rose Frustrates and Onomatopee challenged musicians and artist to once again start cutting and pasting in their living rooms. The end result is a tribute to lo-fi culture.
The Rose Frustrates’ song Happy Days - that deals with new impulses and challenges - was taken as the starting point for this project. The individual tracks of the song were given to Modder (Bardt van der Dennen and Tom Verbruggen) and Bram Stadhouders with the request to each come up with a new version. The musicians had complete freedom to play with the source material, and to remix it in any way they liked. Subsequently, three designers were approached to produce a visual interpretation of each version of the song. Erik Vermeulen, who designed all previous releases of the Rose Frustrates, worked on artwork for the original version of the song, while Marijn van Kreij and Jowan van Barneveld developed artworks inspired by the respective remix versions by Modder and Bram Stadthouders.
The combined result comprises three artworks and two 7” vinyl records. The overall design of the bundle was made by Onomatopee’s Remco van Bladel and the mastering of the audio by The Rose Frustrates’ Mark van der Heijden. Michel van Dartel of The Rose Frustrates and Freek Lomme of Onomatopee curated the project.
The bundled project will be presented at Onomatopee on February 14, 2010, in an appropriate lo-fi setting.
Thanks to the Municipality of Eindhoven and the Pokon Fund.
