I was thoroughly fooled by Stromae’s video for «Formidable» the first time I saw it. My Paris-born brother introduced me to his work and played me some of his other videos as well. I found Stromae to be very intelligent, beautiful, meticulous and his music made me want to dance. However, I was slightly wary of his polished music videos, so I put him in a brightly colored cardboard box. From the Norient book Seismographic Sounds (see and order here).
When I finally saw «Formidable» I found my preconceived notions shattered: Stromae soaked this box I had made for his art into papier mâché. I was no longer just a mere fan, I became his air-conditioner.1 To pull off such a video is brave, not to say beyond genius. I initially thought the video was made up of candid CCTV and pedestrian phone footage until Stromae smiled at the end and skipped off through the alley. I had to watch it several times to notice planted camera people such as the man in the hood.
A Sub-Saharan Perspective
In «Formidable» Stromae is singing about a newly severed relationship and I feel he is being both truthful and sarcastic. Stromae says his ex made his life wonderful because he was miserable before their relationship, but once his life became «wonderful» he found a way to make himself miserable again. Stromae has a way of making poetry out of the «common John’s» life such that the masses quickly and easily identify with his stories. In the video he seems very alone, wet, cold and distraught in a very public European space. There is nothing lonelier than that. Writing this article made me wonder whether such a situation could be replicated in sub-Saharan Africa and I have reached a conclusion that it would be nearly impossible because:
Stromae would not be cold at thirty degrees Celsius.
When it rains here the drops are so huge he would be pelted to the ground if he didn’t seek cover.
Everybody would come for selfies, not just rare approaches by a concerned citizen or fan.
Shelter, food, laughter or even a new girlfriend or two would have been forced on him right there.
A driver would have gotten out of the car and abused him, calling him an AIDS patient or weed smoker, if he didn’t hit him with his car first.
A Gypsy from Chad would come and beg him for food more persistently than usual, because he looks like one of them, until he realizes he is better off than his new semblant friend.
The police would have asked him for money and arrested him if he didn’t sort them out.
I am sure there are more reasons. I don’t deny that people do get lonely here, it’s just a bit harder to do so. Off to watch some of Stromae’s videos I seem to have missed.
1. «Blowing air like an air conditioner» is a saying in Ghana: a fan blows air, an air conditioner blows cooler air.
The second Norient book «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» introduces you to a contemporary world of distinct music and music videos. Written by 250 scholars, journalists, bloggers and musicians from 50 countries.
Though today we often consider churches and their carillons as disturbances to our well-deserved sleep, they were formerly used by cities to display grandiosity and importance. In this sequel of the Sampling Stories we trace the history of the bells of the biggest church in Rotterdam, the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk. Its bell sounds play an important role in the tracks of the compilation 010 (Fog Mountain Records 2016), released by RE:VIVE, an initiative from the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision that aims to bring together archives and artists to create new music out of and inspired by curated sets of archival material. While RE:VIVE's Gregory Markus unfolds the history of the church, Norient invited the artists from the compilation to tell us about their sampling strategies when processing bell sounds from the church in question.
In May 14, 1940, the city of Rotterdam was devastated. A thriving medieval metropolis that served as the key entry point for the rest of the world seeking to enter Europe was reduced to rubble. By the numbers, 25,000 homes, 2,500 stores, 775 warehouses, 65 schools were destroyed and somewhere between 700 and 900 people lost their lives (City Guide Rotterdam 2019). This event has gone on to define their city. Its looming futuristic sky-line, modern architectural marvels, juxtaposed with post-war concrete blocks (and a sliver of remaining medieval houses) make Rotterdam feel more like a second-class American urban area – like Cleveland or Des Moines – than a Dutch city.
For RE:VIVE, once we did our Damrak compilation where every track was inspired by Amsterdam and composed out of archival sounds made in the city we knew that Rotterdam had to be next because we needed to hear how artists would interpret the Netherlands «second city». Damrak raised eyebrows since it didn’t sound like canal houses and tech-house, it was clear from the sounds and images that there was more to the city than what draws millions to it each year. Damrak exposed obfuscated aspects of Amsterdam’s history. We hoped then that with 010 and the shift to Rotterdam, instead of exploring the hidden parts of the city we’d celebrate the obvious this time: ship horns, port mechanics, industrial constructions with hints of hope, struggle, and progress.
The archival sounds in the sample pack (from the large treasures of the The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision; access full sample pack for 010here) didn’t lend themselves to melody. The most prominent sounds were the Port of Rotterdam’s rhythmic churning sounds, incredible ship horns, and church bells. Specifically, the bells of the St. Laurenskerk which would go on to bookend of the compilation, solemnly introducing and majestically concluding the journey.
From Destruction to Restoration
The Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk is a Protestant church built between 1449 and 1525. Originally it was a Roman Catholic church, but during the Reformation of 1572, it was converted to Protestant. The structure is the last remaining relic of the gothic, medieval Rotterdam, and it looks severely out of place in the current city center. To an unknowing eye one would think the church came later almost like Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
However, one could argue the church did come later. Following the Rotterdam Blitz on May 14, 1940 the church barely remained with just the walls and tower left standing. It’s important to note that there’s a historical belief that Rotterdam almost wasn’t bombed – that the bombing was perhaps an accident because the Dutch army had surrendered or sought to extended negotiations.
It didn’t take long for restoration talks to begin the following June, and by September it was assessed that restoration was possible but would be expensive, especially during wartime austerity. Many plans for the church were proposed, including total demolition, the restoration of the tower but construction of a modern church or to simply leave the ruins as a memorial. It wasn’t until 1947 that a plan for a full, original restoration was agreed upon. In the words of the Queen, «and the answer shall be: naturally the tower will be rebuilt because Rotterdam was, is, and always will be: Rotterdam» (Konigin in St-Laurens 1952).
The Carillon
What makes the story of the St. Laurenskerk special is not just the cliché about Rotterdam as a «phoenix» but more specifically, its bells. Church bells are a sound that dominate almost every European city. Millions of people flock to main squares simply to hear church bells ring out. They echo across small towns and landscapes and, more often than not for the unlucky few living next to them, are an early morning wake-up call. To an untrained ear, bells might just sound like the clangy clang of massive metal objects. In reality, their nuance and tonal capacity is an elegant, mathematical mystery of early sound design perfected by two Frenchmen in the Low Countries nearly 400 years ago.
The story goes that on August 23, 1638, Descartes wrote to a colleague named Marin Mersenne and proclaimed, «In Utrecht lives a blind man with a great musical reputation, who regularly plays bells. I have seen how he elicits five or six different sounds on each of the largest bells without touching them, but only by coming close to their sound rim with his mouth» (Rombouts 2014). This gentleman was named Jacob van Eyck and indeed was blind but had tremendous hearing capacity. Van Eyck was a carillon virtuoso who mastered the long standing yet elusive theory among carillonneurs that bell sounds are «partial notes consisted of three notes an octave apart, supplemented by a minor third and a pure fifth in the second octave» (ibid.). However, to realize his theory he needed experts to make the actual bells. Enter Pierre and François Hemony, French brothers and carillon makers that had recently moved to the Low Countries.
François and Pierre were born in France in 1609 and 1619, respectively, but relocated to the Rhineland in 1640. It was there that the brothers’ career took off. After a commission for the Dutch town, Goor, they were awarded a commission by the town of Zutphen for the new Winery Tower and moved there to open their foundry. In 1644 the two delivered their product. The bells, presumably done under consultation from Van Eyck, were the most well tuned and crafted bells in the area. They’re believed by some to be the first perfectly tuned carillon but no one can hear them anymore: in 1920 the tower burned down taking the bells with it.
It was a perfect storm of circumstances for the Hemony brothers who set themselves apart with the Winery Tower and a new set of carillon done under consultation with Van Eyck for the town of Deventer. A year later in 1648 the peace of Munster was signed and the Dutch Republic was awarded sovereignty. At the time, cities used churches and their carillon to display grandiosity and importance. With an urge to raise their profile, the newly sovereign Dutch cities sought to celebrate by having the most perfect and lush carillion throughout Europe, distinguishing themselves from their former rulers. For Pierre and Francois, this meant that business was good.
Together and individually, the brothers delivered 50 carillon throughout Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden. Under the initial guidance of the blind Van Eyck, they turned the carillon into a viable musical instrument. There were doubts after the brothers’ deaths that no one would be able to match their level of mastery. For centuries after, new bell makers would be compared to the Hemony standard.
Field Recordings from the Bells of St. Laurenskerk
Access full sample pack for 010here (Creative Commons BY-SA license).
The Signifying Bells
The immense history and legacy that exists in these towers is something that’s not often considered by the general population. The idea that the equivalent of a Stradivarius, which rings out and reverberates for miles every day (like the urban legend of a famed violinist playing a free concert disguised as a busker for busy commuters) is something we take for granted. We hear what we hear and see what we see but don’t recognize the greatness behind it simply because no one is there to tell us it’s great.
For Rotterdam, it seems almost too serendipitous that the Laurenskerk remained after the bombing. While the vast majority of the church had burned out, most of the Hemony carillon remained intact because of a recently poured concrete floor in the tower.
For 010 the Laurenskerk played a huge sonic role because it offered clear melodic frequencies and with warm tails and drones. We chose to use it as both the intro and closing for the compilation as a way to signify a start and end, warm prologue and epilogue for what is otherwise a rather rough ride. Rotterdam begs for metaphors and cliches like this. And while for the normal person the Hemony bells in the Laurenskerk will ring out unacknowledged, a few will listen and think how lucky it is to be hearing the last fleeting sonic remnants of a city that once was. So the bells will ring on for the time being and signify each new day as Rotterdam pushes on.
«It was not the specific church that drew me in, I didn't find the name of the church until later. It is just the nature of the bells and the effect they have on me in various cities around the world. There is something in the nature of church bells that helps you widen your perspective on a city. This is a combination of the way that the sound travels and cuts through the wall of noise and also in their purpose, calling to you. Often, because the environment is built up, it is hard to look beyond your current position in a city, but church bells pull you into a larger perspective.
In the track, I attempted to process the bells in a way that gave the impression of the sound being stretched over an increasing distance, beginning in close vicinity of the church and then opening out as though hearing them from the other side of the city, or travelling away from them. At the start of the track, the bells fall into small, almost percussive segments as I attempted to model a sense of movement in the sound. This is reinforced with recordings of various modes of transport within the city and a melodic pulse from the Metro. In order to achieve this, I used a variety of granular processes. I wanted the transition from the bells into the string segment to go almost unnoticed and for the whole piece to slowly unravel as you travel further from the original sound. The bell sound begins dry, slightly tuned to fit the key of the piece, and is then gradually stretched using a combination of Mutable Clouds, a modular granular processor, and Omnisphere 2's granular processor.»
«For me, and I would assume many people, church bells possess a spiritual aura and express a unique religious emotion or something of greater power - even enlightenment. They also have their negative connotations but the Sint Laurenskerk bells sounded powerful and uplifting. I've always wanted to bring these concepts to my own music and the Sint Laurenskerk bells were quite valuable to my contribution to the compilation.
When I was creating my track, ‹Eva›, I knew I wanted to use the bells for a melody to bring emotion to the dense industrial sounds I'd been working with. The bells were the best option to create some tones with. Adding these tones boosted the track to the «greater power» it needed. The track no longer sounded like it was just a machine, it had become a machine with divine power.
I processed the sample by focusing on getting a decent one shot of the bell and controlling the volume to force it to fade out. Then I warped it and added some reverb to extend its length and volume. I did my best to stay true to the original sound of the bell while still getting the melodic background sound I had in mind. When I added it to my arrangement, I tried out a few different pitches and created a looping melody. It blended really well with the rest of the sounds I created and I was quite happy with the effect it had on the track.»
«To be honest, the bells were one of the few tonal samples, so looking for a sound that could be used in a simple, musical way, without having to manipulate it, made the bells an easy choice. Apart from that, I must admit I really love the sound of bells, the attack, ringing, textures...
I tried to use the sample in a raw way, I did not want it to sound cosy, but rather wanted it to sound a bit too harsh and loud compared to other sounds going on. I imported the sample, made sure the tones were more or less in key with the rest of the track, and then recorded myself turning knobs on a filter and reverb as the track played along. I really like more in-depth sampling, it's a big part of what I do, I guess, but the bells in this case were just perfect in their original form, to give the rest of the track some more life and energy, which was what I was aiming for.»
«To be honest, I really thought I had used the Sint Laurenskerk sample. At some point I was playing with it and my general process was to grab whatever I liked the sound of and sounded ‹clean› enough, and I began stretching and processing and improvising with Supercollider. So, at some point, I remember getting something interesting out of the bells but going through the project files now I can't hear anything from the bells in any of the material I actually used in the end. That was compounded by the fact that all of my source material ended up with names like ‹sc_9123_019329823_123.aif›, so it's really hard to be sure. It's possible some stray grains of bell made it through»
Anonymous. 1952. «Koningin in St-Laurens: ‹Rotterdam was, is en blijft immers: Rotterdam›». Het Vrije Volk: Democratisch-Socialistisch Dagblad May 19: 7. (http://www.delpher.nl/nl/kranten/view?coll=ddd&identifier=ddd:010951381:mpeg21:a0154).
Rotterdam City Guide. 2019. «The Destroyed City of Rotterdam». Accessed June 20. (https://www.cityguiderotterdam.com/things-to-do/sights/the-destroyed-city-rotterdam/).
Rombouts, Luc. 2014. Singing Bronze: A History of Carillon Music. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
This article has been published in the context of the PhD research on sampling in experimental electronic music by Hannes Liechti. For more info click here.
Biography
Gregory Markus is a project leader at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. His focus is on, R&D, community engagement and creative re-use of archival materials. He holds a BA and MA in European Studies with a focus on European Identity and transnational communities.
The song «BRKN LNGWJZ» and its video announce the FOKN Bois (Wanlov the Kubolor, M3nsa) as critical, global, political, and absurdist hip hop voices. It marks the birth of international pidgin rap not only as a style once can dance to, but as a modernist multi-media art form. From the Norient book Seismographic Sounds (see and order here).
The song speaks to both Accra dwellers as well as global music fans. It requires multiple forms of fluency in linguistic, musical, and life experience to catch the fast and oblique references that M3nsa and Wanlov the Kubolor throw at listeners in rhyming half phrases. The dense referential style and subtle humor reflects the attitude in African metropolises. The FOKN Bois are self-professed hip hop heads and took the 1995 hit «Broken Language» by Brooklyn rapper Smoothe Da Hustler as a manifesto for proclaiming one’s identity. While the FOKN Bois build on Smoothe’s rhythmic flow, they eschew his sincere hyper-masculine intensity in favor of quirky and parodic poetics.
Taking West African Hip Hop to a New Level
Their homage to the American hip hop classic, however, is irrelevant for most Ghanaian fans who hear the track as a marker of generational dystopia, a critique of sincerity in religion and politics, and a call to appreciate the small pleasures in life—playing football in the streets, flirting, having sex, playing with words, climbing trees, talking trash, roaming the city. Hip hop has become a flexible and appealing global style precisely because it obliges artists to remix, sample, steal, and reflexively claim their places in the world and the right to move around it.
The FOKN Bois take the work of first generation West African hip hop artists to a new level. This song marks a more broadly significant moment in contemporary transnational African digital arts: The rise of a new generation of digitally savvy and multiply fluent artists across various media and languages. It is not adequate to call the FOKN Bois musicians or hip hop artists. They transcend musical genres and media as their recent feature films Coz Ov Moni 1 and 2 demonstrate. For them, music is only one way to express how to live a socio-politically engaged life. Their work is a form of entertainment that reflexively critiques inequality and exploitation; and it can also serve as a profound inquiry into how to have fun in a cosmopolitan city.
Taking Parody to a New Place
The FOKN Bois are smart, sexy, and insightful. They take parody to a new place and then make fun of the idea of parody. They smirk at you for listening to them. The FOKN Bois invoke the duality of the trickster as both creator and destroyer. Hustling relies upon agility of mind and mobility of body. The ethos of hustling – surviving and finding pleasure in a hostile world – permeates hip hop cultures around the world. It is also common to West African popular expressive styles. For young Ghanaian musicians and fans, hustling defines a form of pleasure, a way to imagine themselves as circulating successfully across a complex social landscape. Pidgin is a language made from the fragments of multiple linguistic traditions. The brokenness of older languages opens creative possibilities for new modes for speaking as in the FOKN Bois’ pidgin art.
Jesse Weaver Shipley is a filmmaker and the author of two books «Living the Hiplife: Celebrity and Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Popular Music» and «Trickster Theatre: The Poetics of Freedom in Urban Africa». Follow him on his Website.
From Self-Orientalism in Arab music to the sheer exploitation of Brazilian funk music by acclaimed artists: how exotica examine aesthetics playing with the other and cultural misunderstandings.
