Spinvis drags along in his ‘tingeltang brainpan’ – a wonderful world where big things become small

Music is a source of comfort, the great Jan Rot (1957-2022) once said about the soothing effect that his hero Roy Orbison had on him. Continue that thought and you end up with ‘Paradijs’, a surprisingly funky track on the seventh Spinvis album Be-Bop-A-Lula. In a flood of words that can now be called Spinvissian, Erik de Jong sums up in a realistic-poetic way all the things that can go wrong in today’s world; the small and great disappointments that a benevolent person encounters. “You do your best, but something is broken,” De Jong sings about the earth that trembles and the water that rises in paradise.

“She Loves You” is his comforting conclusion in this key track of an album loosely inspired by the birth cry of rock ‘n’ roll, as Gene Vincent unleashed in 1956 with the apparent nonsense cry of be-bop-a-lula . The corona crisis had little influence on Spinvis’ working method: recording in the studio under his house, guest roles for cellist Saartje van Camp and violinist Merel Junge, mixing via “a rare speaker from 1950 that had just the right sound.” Is it rock and roll? Young doesn’t know. “You make something and later you see what it actually is.”

The machine rhythm of the opening number rises from a lo-fi sound collage ‘Tingeltang brainpan’ that launches the credo “everything is possible” for an album that moves, makes you think, evokes a smile and drags you into the wonderful world of a singer who can make small things big, but especially big things small. The tidy atmosphere of the hopping number ‘Spring ’22’ is deceptive. Subtly it deals with the transience of friendship, ideals and life itself. Happiness, or the impossibility thereof, is a recurring theme in songs about a golden wedding, a birthday where ‘Lang Zal He Leven’ is sung and the inevitable end of all those festivities.

‘Icarus’ sings about the little homesick sun, the quiet farewell sun and the little lonely sun, Spinvissianisms in optima forma against the background of an airbed blue sky. Steel guitar, children’s voices and a string make it irresistible sunshine pop.

The melancholy of ‘Speel Dat Ik Leef’ and the Tom Waits-esque quacking rhythm of ‘Oogstlied’ contribute to the story that Spinvis tells in twelve colorful pop songs and two instrumentals, including the ghostly title track that, with its trembling violins, so far from Gene Vincent different if possible. Be-Bop-A-Lula at Spinvis stands for a sense of life that is never completely finished. Beauty grows out of the cracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsWtK4o0aas