NEVEN

Interesting new Belgian electronic/acoustic band.

Neven is Peter Clasen's project, a Belgian musical omnivore, who cites 'recycling' and 'communication' as major reasons to make music.
Recycling by using samples ("Some samples have a history of their own. It's as if they just travel from one band to another") and also by sampling their own songs.
Communication is what happens when electronics are confronted with 'real' musical instruments. As a result, Neven's music sounds like a layered collage of all kinds of musical influences, sounds and colors (jungle soundscapes, a Goats bassline, slowed-down frog-croaking).

As a reviewer of their second album "Twin cycles", in fact a remix of their 1995 debut album "Recycl-Age" said : "Some might call this triphop, but they would be wrong. There's far too much going on on this record, so much even that it's better to take a break from listening now and then in order to taste their Xprmntl-trance-dub-food (their own label!) with the attention it requires."

Neven is a group with two sides. On stage they expand the group with a number of people (such as Steven de Bruyn & Toon Derison, of El Fish, rapper Melkizedek - the Ghana-born Belgian Thibaut N'Dong M'Boulou), in the studio the group only consists of the brothers Peter & Johan Clasen and Christophe Bailleau.

Johan is a classically schooled musician (although he is in fact an architect), but they both add electronic fragments to the music. Peter is the one who structures the music. Christophe, who now also has a solo CD under the name Glyth, adds strangeness to the music. "He comes up with these totally nutty sounds".

In 1997 they surprised Belgium and the world with "Heads or Tails", a song that featured a sample of a Mingus-sample by dEUS, Theme from Turnpike. The year after, they completely redid (replayed) the sample and made it unrecognizable in the album version of the song.

In 1998, they released another new album "Kokkola" (the fourth in three years ) and were also sent to Kopenhagen for the Eurospotting festival by Studio Brussel (this festival is the successor to the E.B.U.-festival, - previous delegates from Belgium include The Scabs, TC Matic and Hooverphonic  - and meant a foreign breakthrough for some Belgian Bands).

Peter Clasen also has a record company of his own, called Ex-It records, although the Neven records are licensed through the Different Recordings and distributed trough Play It Again Sam!-records.

Neven is also very active as a remixer of the song's of others (e.g. the new single of PPz30 "Down & Up & In & Out").

In 1999, Peter Claesen recorded an album with Frenchman Christophe Bailleau's project Glyth. Then he concentrated on Neven again, with the single "Pornostar" (built on a harp-sample of Steven de Bruyn) and the full-cd "Bruxelogic". This was released in March 2000, and was presented in Paris on a "bateau-mouche" on the river Seine, and in Brussels with a mini-festival at the Halles de Schaerbeek.

In March 2000, NeVen also did a contribution to the "Glittering 2000" project, on which belgian bands covered songs from the glamrock era, by doing a version of Elton John's "Rocket Girl".

In 2001, Neven released a cd "Stereoscope", which in itself a result of "Intérieur audible", a coöperation between Peter Clasen and german artist Annick Nölle. This was a mini-spectacle in a shopwindow in Brussels. The CD - much more ambient, groovy and "organic - handmade with the computer" than the Bruxelogic album, contained both a music part (with a new version of "Drogué" for example) and a video part called "Into Brussels".

Members :
- Peter Clasen
- Johan Clasen
- Cristophe Bailleau
- Melkezidek (raps)
- Toon Derison (drums, percussion)

Koop CD's van deze groep bij

Albums :
- Recycl-Age (1995)
- Twin Cycles (Lowlands, 1996)
- Scarwash (RT, 1996)
- Kokkola (Different Recordings, 1998)
- Bruxelogic (Exit Recor, 2000)
- Stéreoscope (Exit Recor, 2001)

Websites :
- Review of "Bruxelogic"
- Glyth, the project of Christophe Bailleau
- Exit.recor website
- Neven at Atrecordings
- Review of "Kokkola" at Belgacom On-Line With Rock