Emotional knock-out.
The John Dear Mowing Club from the Hague is singer/guitarist/graphic artist Melle de Boer’s vehicle, just like when the band was still called Smutfish. On their debut Lawnmower Mind, the ep The Fish That Couldn’t Swim and Through A Slightly Open Door De Boer also determined the tone of voice alone, just like on the untitled debut of the John Dear Mowing Club after that.
That goes even more for Melleville. There De Boer gets minimal company of other musicians only nine times in seventeen songs that he recorded in his workshop.
Thematically they blend seamlessly with earlier work: echos from Daniël Johnson (who indeed sings along in Devils) and Neil Young at the time of Tonight The Night and On The Beach are audible in De Boer’s anguished universum, in which loneliness and sweltering tension go hand in hand.
De Boer, sometimes singing with an emotional catch in his voice, does not care for anecdotical lyrics or a mainstream production: just like in his art he evokes a completely private, uncompromising world. Because he sings about universal themes, the songs with quirky metaphores are also directly understood instinctively. The barren, sometimes primitive-sounding recordings add atmosphere rather than deminish it.
Furthermore this extraordinary release of 1000 self-released copies comes in the shape of a hard-cover book, in which you will find, except the cd, the lyrics and explanations, also 36 pages of De Boer’s drawings. That way too, De Boer allows the listener access to his world via this small masterpiece.
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More information via www.mowingclub.com – shop – cd’s