Hooverphonic

‘It was time for something else. After ten years Hooverphonic I wanted to change direction, get away from computers, away from orchestras. No synths, just the human feel of organs and mellotrons and harpsichords… and record everything live, no more cutting and pasting. I wanted to hear a group playing on the album… and pay homage to my musical roots: the psychedelic period of the sixties.’ Alex Callier
Ten years Hooverphonic and the seventh studio album. An album with an especially intriguing title: ‘The President of the LSD Golf Club’. And has Hooverphonic come up with a psychedelic album? From the hypnotic opener ‘Stranger’ to the mystifying closing track, ‘Bohemian Laughter’, the answer is a definite yes. ‘The President of the LSD Golf Club’ is a ten track trip that takes the listener from ecstatic peaks only to drop them into mysterious abysses. Alex Callier: ‘Even during the indie rock period of the nineties I still looked for psychedelic music: My Bloody Valentine, Adorable, Slowdive. Then of course there’s my love for the sixties: Pink Floyd, The Byrds, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Mamas and The Papas, Love… and the Stones’ ‘2000 Light Years from Home’ which in fact shows that I’m a Beatles fan at heart.’

‘The President of The LSD Golf Club’ pays homage to Alex Callier’s musical roots: retro-psychedelic, which is apparent in the way the album was recorded – you can practically smell the vintage… Callier: ‘After ten years it was time to put aside electronics. No computers, no synthesizers, not even an orchestra. I was sick and tired of sitting there programming on my own. I wanted to make music in the studio… with musicians. I also wanted to record like they used to back in the sixties: on analogue tape. I wanted to get back to the essentials in music. Of course working like that limits you somewhat, but that’s where the fun lies: it entails taking risks, which in itself is a learning process. We started out on a chosen path and simply said to ourselves: let’s see where it leads to.’ Using the rough demos Alex had put down at home, the band, comprising six musicians, spent a week in rehearsals. In August 2006 they ensconced themselves in the La Chapelle Studios, deep in the heart of the Ardennes in Belgium. Under the auspices of veteran producer Mike Butcher, they recorded the album in just eleven days. Everything was played live. Not a ‘cut’ or a ‘paste’ in sight. Not only have the band recorded the album on their own label, this is also the first Hooverphonic album where the sound, the essence to quote Alex, literally came into being in the studio.

What played a crucial role for the sound was the range of instruments set up in the La Chappelle studio which included a mellotron, a harpsichord, a specially-prepared piano (they pricked the piano’s felt hammers with drawing pins to create a type of cymbalum sound), a Farfisa organ (remember The Doors)… The band were able to let themselves go and lose themselves in the colourful sound palette produced by these vintage instruments leaving the seclusion and the relaxed atmosphere in de studio to do the rest. Even the mixing had a retro touch: the album was mixed at the ICP Studios in Brussels on a vintage mixing console. Callier: ‘We did it on the EMI Neve console, of which there were only seven made at the time. Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ was mixed on a EMI Neve console.’ When it was time to master the album the band opted once again – cf. ‘The Magnificent Tree’ – for the Sterling Sound Studios in New York.
And yet even taking the ‘unusual’ sound of the piano in ‘50 Watt’ and ‘Circles’, the Farfisa organ in ‘Expedition Impossible’, the theme of ‘50 Watt’ that returns in ‘Gentle Storm’, the harpsichord in ‘The Eclipse Song’, the nod to Gainsbourg in ‘Billie’, the album wouldn’t have that unmistakable Hooverphonic stamp were it not for the bewitchingly haunting voice of Geike Arnaert. It’s especially on this outing, more than on any previous album, that Geike’s voice becomes one with the instruments. Without resorting to drama, she sings with that same subdued emotion to be found in the playing. This album is also the first time that Alex Callier has added his voice to a couple of tracks, like on ‘50 Watt’. Towards the end of the album both the songs and instrumentation become more venturous and weightier. ‘Black Marble Tiles’ is undoubtedly the darkest moment on the album. The finale, comprising ‘Strictly Out Of Phase’ and ‘Bohemian Laughter’, is nothing short of ominous, as if the swinging dance party in the video clip of ‘The World Is Mine’ has degenerated into a blinding acid trip. ‘I’m obsessed by bohemian laughter / I’m not impressed the morning after’…
This is without doubt the most daring and experimental Hooverphonic album ever. As Callier says: ‘Okay, I admit you wouldn’t hear these numbers on your typical ‘Idol’ programme, and perhaps they might have less hit potential than our earlier work. On the other hand, ‘Jackie Cane’ had nothing to do with ‘The Magnificent Tree’ either. My taste in music has always been left of centre. I can’t get enough of The Go Find and Wilco at the moment. We’re eclectic souls, that’s simply the way we are. We’ve swum up a lot of musical streams: from the trip hop of ‘2Wicky’ to the Burt Bacharach homage of ‘The World Is Mine’. The numbers on ‘The President Of The LSD Golf Club’ are a perfect illustration of where my musical roots lie, they represent the sort of music that I’ve been a fan of all my life.’
But there still remains the album’s title, which apparently is taken from to an anecdote from years ago when Hooverphonic were playing in San Francisco. The band had been in Bimbo’s, Brian Setzer’s bar, and took a taxi back to the hotel. Behind the wheel sat an unadulterated David Crosby lookalike. Says Callier: ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes. The driver was anything but talkative, in fact he was bordering on the morose. That was until I asked him if he’d lived through the heady days of the sixties in San Francisco. Suddenly there was this twinkle in his eyes and then there was no stopping him: ‘The sixties were wild man! People used to call me The President of the LSD Golf club. Every Tuesday we took loads of acid and then we went to play golf.’’
Meeting hippy David Crosby’s double by chance in San Francisco, in a taxi of all places, who comes out with an insane story about the sixties… hilarious, surrealistic and definitely psychedelic. The last word’s for Callier: ‘I knew right away that one day I’d make an album with that title.’