Het Droste Effect: SOAR

Let’s play a quick game of word association: What do you think of when you see or hear the word “Eindhoven”?

If you think “erm…it’s in the Netherlands somewhere but I couldn’t point to it on a map” then see me after class for a quick geography lesson. If, however, the words “Psych Lab” float their way into your temporal lobe and then out of your mouth, well done. Have a gold star and a hot vimto.

I’d like to think that Het Droste Effect, who are a band from that very Dutch city, have fully absorbed the goings on at the annual festival, and from the evidence of their debut album SOAR it would appear they have. Opener Syncopiapo is an industrial fizzer which sets the tone nicely for the rest of the album. Follow up track You Know That I Knew really gets into the psych rock groove that moves the head and feet, and a glorious bass line that you’ll be humming for days.

While some of the shorter tracks wander into a more ambient territory, with bleepy field recordings punctuating the many layers of overdubbed guitar and cymbals, a full on fuzzy freak out is never far away: Hash It Out in particular stands out as a song where you just need to close your eyes and let it take you wherever it wants before the title track takes the pace down somewhat, allowing some much needed recovery time with icy synths taking a much more prominent role. Well, that is until the midway tribal drum breakdown and we’re back in full on psych territory reminiscent of some of Pink Floyd’s more experimental early post Syd Barrett recordings.

Final track Sandra Eats the sunshine is a near 10 minute epic which starts slowly with some dreamy sax and simple guitar before it just builds and builds. And builds.

You can name your price for the digital download of SOAR on Bandcamp so there’s very little excuse for not getting your grubby mitts on this. Vinyl and tape formats are also available by contacting the band.

Het Droste Effect — Syncopiapo from Het Droste Effect on Vimeo.

petecollins