HOOVERPHONIC

Triphop from Sint-Niklaas, initially operating under the name "Hoover".

To quote Frank Duchêne (Keyboards) : "We wanted to get the chance to grow and build up a reputation. Being the hype of the month doesn't interest us".
Little did they know, that the release of their debut-album "Hoover (A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular)" was going to label them as as the "best-kept secret of Belgian Pop".
One cannot deny that next to making fascinating and intriguing music, the mystical aura around "Hoover" contributed to the success they are having now and not just in Belgium, not just in Europe, but also in the States.

Their debut album  was something they all worked very hard at. It was recorded in the home studio of Alex in Sint-Niklaas. Both Alex and Frank produced it, relying on their large experience with studiowork. The final mix, however, was in hands of Roland Herrington, who had already worked with stars like Simply Red, Bjork and Soul 2 Soul. The result was an album which blends all kinds of music styles together : trash, ambient, techno, trip-hop, folk, movie-samplers.

Or as Humo put it "It doesn't happen every day that the first single of a Belgian group is featured on the soundtrack of a big international film. It even doesn't happen every day that a Belgian group releases a very beautiful debut-album. You can bury Hoover under tags like "moody", "spacey", "triphop", "ambient pop" etc... but it's a fact that even if you left out the reverbing sound and the dozens of details of the samples, the opener of the record "Inhaler" is simply a great song (and a perfect opener). What follows is without an exception of the same high standard."

Some doubts arose on whether the group could produce a follow-up to this impressive debut. Liesje Sadonius, the singer that featured on the album left the band, a replacement was found to tour live, but she was kicked out a few months later. This didn't prevent the group from touring though, as a third singer was found in the delicious Geike Arnaert.

The hit "2 Wicky", which already had a prominent position in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty, also was on the soundtrack of "I know what you did last summer", an American thriller.

At the end of April 1998, Hooverphonic released the long awaited successor to "A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular" in the Atomium of Brussels. The album "Blue Wonder Power Milk" confirmed all the good things that had been said about the group in the first instance. The album was produced by Mark Plati (David Bowie, Nathalie Imbruglia, Janet Jackson, Talking Heads ...) and lasted for a very long time - at least here in Belgium - with the singles "Club Montepulciano", "This Strange Effect" (a cover of the sixties hit for Dave Berry written by Ray Davies of The Kinks. As Alex Callier said : "A world hit, we thought. A good way to score. But it turned out this was no world hit at all. Dave Berry ended up in the charts with this song only in Belgium and Holland, in America no-one knows that song''), "Eden" (beautiful eery melody that lasted several months in "De Afrekening") and "Lung".

Frank Duchene and Alex Callier got so fed up with each other, that Hooverphonic was reduced to a trio. Frank Duchêne then started devoting himself to being a producer of all kinds of bands (e.g. Gorki, Kolk, Groove Cartel, Jo Lemaire ...) and has recently opened a witty site about himself at frankduchene.com.

In 2000, Alex Callier wrote a song especially for the opening ceremony of the soccer tournament Euro 2000 : a 12-minute long track track that comes when you call it "Visions". Even better was the news that a first new single of what would become Hooverphonic's third album was released in May : the delightful "Mad About You" .

The full-cd was called "The Magnificent Tree", and was released in August. Some facts about it :
- the album has cost 8,000,000 Bef (170,000$) to record, surely making it one of the most expensive Belgian albums ever. Some of the reasons for this costs come from the fact that the first three weeks of recording were trown away, as they apparently were heading in the wrong direction. The record company hopes to sell 500,000 of it, much more than the 150,000 of the previous two albums (the band just received a gold album for 25,000 copies of "Blue Wonder Power Milk" here in Belgium).
- There are 11 songs on it, and the second single is going to be "Vinegar & Salt", one of the tracks that is consistently named as the best by reviewers who heard the album. The other song that gets best marks is "Jackie Cane", a song written by Alex in partnership with Cathy Dennis (had a hit with the house-formation D'Mob and a subsequent succesful solo-album "Move to this" in 1991).
- In Belgium only, it comes with an exclusive extra CD that contains a remix of "Mad About You", a quicktime video of that same song, the entire 11 minutes-long uncut version of "Visions" (the song that they wrote for the opening of Euro 2000) and some "Magnificent Tree wallpaper". Through the innovative use of internet, however, American or other fans can also buy this album easily from the comfort of their homes
- the band has assembled a live-band to do these show that include Dave Poltrock (keyboards, Monza) and Mario Goossens (drums, ex-Hoodoo Club, AngeliCo) of the new Stijn Meuris band Monza.
- The album will be released in almost all European countries at the same time, but in the States only at the end of September. The band then headed over to the States to do a tour of at least 30 cities, together with the electronic musician BT (Brian Transeau), the artist that created the soundtrack for the millenium dome (Pffffffffffff?). To liven things up, the band headed to Vegas for a double (or was it triple?) wedding.

In Belgium, Hooverphonic gained huge recornition for this album, crowned by a batch of Zamu-awards, loads of media-appearances, televised live-concerts. In the summer of 2001 they were scheduled as one of the headliners of the Werchter-festival.

Band members (current members are in bold typeface) :
- Geike Arnaert / Liesje Sadonius (vocals)
- Alex Carlier (guitar, PC)
- Frank Duchêne (keyboards)
- Raymond Geerts (guitar).

Buy CD's of this band at

Albums :
- A new stereophonic sound spectacular (Sonymusic - 1996)
- Blue Wonder Power Milk (Sony - 1998)
- The Magnificent Tree (Sony - 2000)

Websites :
- Hoover/Hooverphonic has an official website
- My review of Shades, the soundtrack and of "The Magnificent Tree"
- video of 2-wicky at Surf-inn (requires Quicktime and 1.8 Mb of yer patience)
- [ i n h a l e r ], cool fansite
- hooverunderground.be is another stylish fansite
- Frank Duchêne's career after Hooverphonic can be followed on his site
- Streaming video interview (June 7, 2001) on Canal Plus (dutch)
- Teksten op Waltertje's Lyrics Site