Symfonische en/of progressieve rock. Deze muziekstijl is nog steeds springlevend. Bands van over de hele wereld dragen hun steentje aan het genre bij. Niet alleen Engelstalige symfo, maar vele bands zingen in hun moederstaal en voegen zo een stukje eigen cultuur aan hun muziek toe. Maar nog nooit zong een Nederlandse progband in de eigen taal. Het team van Progwereld brengt hier nu snel verandering in. Progwereld presenteert: PROG NL

Tien Nederlandse topacts nemen een Nederlandstalig nummer op. Dit kan een bestaand eigen nummer zijn, maar een aantal bands heeft een nieuw nummer geschreven speciaal voor deze verzamel cd. Kijk links op deze pagina of bij het menukopje “BANDS” om te zien welke bands meedoen aan dit unieke project. En zelfs de Friese taal wordt niet geschuwd, en er gaan ook geruchten dat een Haagse band….

PROG NL is een eenmalige actie ter ere van 10-jarig bestaan van Progwereld. Het PROG NL verzamelalbum kent een strikt gelimiteerde en beperkte oplage. Op is echt op. Het album zal in april 2011 het lentelicht zien. Bestel hier alvast jouw exemplaar, want dit wordt een volstrekt uniek collectoritem!

coverprognl

PROG NL is een uniek en eenmalig project. De oplage van deze verzamelaar is beperkt en op is echt op! Wees er dus snel bij en verzeker jezelf van een exemplaar. Deze cd zal niet in de winkels te koop zijn en kan alleen via deze website besteld worden.

De Tracks

1. Leap Day – Half Mens, Half Machine (6:51)
2. 21 Eyes Of Ruby – Vleugellam (3:42)
3. Harvest – De Stille Zwerver (5:19)
4. Bruut Pitt – Twijfel (5:51)
5. The Aurora Project – Alles Is Een (5:19)
6. Flamborough Head – Rixt Fan’t Oerd (7:25)
7. Knight Area – Rijk Der Schaduwen (5:55)
8. Ulysses – Verloren (5:31)
9. Nice Beaver – Tijdlijn (6:31)
10. PBII – Haagse Soep (7:47)

Totale speelduur: 60:11

Enkele reacties van kopers:

“De cd besteld uit nieuwsgierigheid (en enige scepsis, prog in het Nederlands…). Na de eerste luisterbeurt kan ik jullie al wel vertellen dat de cd me zeer heeft verrast. Complimenten!”. Geert

“Goedemorgen, zojuist de Jubileum-cd gedraaid die ik gisteravond heb mogen ontvangen. Uniek exemplaar waar Progwereld geschiedenis mee schrijft. Bedankt voor deze machtig mooie klanken die als het goed is per draaibeurt meer van hun pracht zulllen laten zien. Op naar de volgende 10 jaar en blijf jullie volgen!” Ronald

“Eerste feedback en indruk: Wat een geniale plaat! Echt heerlijk om te luisteren. De cd begint gewoon al goed met “Half mens, half machine”, supertof nummer! Natuurlijk is “Vleugellam” van 21EoR ook geniaal. Ik zeg: volledig terecht dat deze bands op deze cd staan en dat ik deze cd gekocht heb, want het is helemaal top! Ik ga hem ff platdraaien!” Rindert

De bands aan het woord

Kijk op onze speciale progvizier hoe de bands het ervaren hebben om aan PROG NL mee te werken.

Wilt u de cd bestellen, kijk onderaan deze pagina voor bestelinstructies!

Recensie door onze vrienden van DPRP

Our esteemed colleagues of ProgWereld (www.progwereld.org), a Dutch online Ezine also dedicated to prog music, exists 10 years on 13th April 2011 and to celebrate that they decided to do something special and assemble and release a special compilation album. A bold plan, even more since they came up with the rather interesting concept to produce an album on with all groups sing in Dutch! With the occasion of their anniversary as the initiator they wanted to do something special for their readers and also to provide an extra stage for Dutch bands, giving them some extra exposure.

Thinking about this concept I realized I can’t think of even one famous prog group in the world of prog heads that sings in Dutch; despite the considerable amount of good Dutch prog bands. I know prog groups singing in German, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Japanese, Chinese and surely there are several local prog bands who sing in their native language around the globe. But despite the fact I’m pretty familiar with the Dutch prog scene I can’t think of any prog band singing in Dutch. So that’s one reason that makes this project so special.

All bands were free in their choice to either re-record a song of their own, with Dutch lyrics or record a brand new song especially for this album. Most of the groups choose the ‘easy way’, but four wrote and recorded a brand new song for this album: Leap Day, Harvest, Flamborough Head and Nice Beaver.

All bands recorded and produced their own song, but Gerben Klazinga of Knight Area did the mastering and was very active in the studio for this project. There are some differences in recording quality between the songs, since every band did that on his own with his own equipment and possibilities, so as a whole this album truly sounds as a compilation from various sources.But that really isn’t a problem listening to it, certainly not when knowing the background story of it.

But there are some more surprises to be noted on this album, for instance Spanish group Harvest, what are they doing on this 100% Dutch album? Well actually their female singer Monique van der Kolk is Dutch (now living in Barcelona) and joined the group when they were searching for a singer for their group Dracma. Another surprise comes from the notorious Flamborough Head that hails from the province of Friesland whose people never miss an opportunity to make clear that their own local language is a true language and not just a dialect. Considering the fact that I hardly understand a word when they speak Fries I must admit they seem to have a point. So bearing that in mind the song that Flamborough Head wrote and recorded especially for this album is sung in Fries, it’s actually the odd one out as it is actually not sung in Dutch. Maybe this is even the first prog song ever recorded in Fries, who knows? If the flat dialect from The Hague can be considered as true Dutch is another point of discussion, but the very tongue-in-cheek song PBII contributed automatically makes any Dutchman smile as it is a well-known dialect often used by people with a slight (posed) attitude.

Well, what can be said about the music on this special compilation album? First of all that it doesn’t sound weird at all to hear prog songs sung in Dutch; hey, it’s prog isn’t it, so everything goes. But seriously, sometimes English songs translated into Dutch sound very peculiar and forced just like something that is cramped within a surrounding that doesn’t really fit. But in this case I really can’t say that this is the case; either the lyrics are so well translated or altered that it doesn’t sound unnatural or the lyrics in itself are already sophisticated enough that also a translation doesn’t loose the intended atmosphere. If you don’t understand Dutch these songs will sound to you just as any other one in a for you strange language; it certainly isn’t so that the Dutch language with its harsh sounds (someone once said that Dutch sounds as if you have a sincere throat infection) isn’t appropriate for prog songs or any other sort for that matter! Many Dutch artists were asked why they don’t sing in their native language, and the two answers mostly given are that they feel it’s necessary to sing in English to enable a possible international career and secondly that Dutch isn’t apt for singing. Well, I think that the second reason is herewith undermined; well of course some categories of music really sound better in some languages; can you imagine a chanson not sung in French or Rammstein not singing in German; they tried that once and it sounded awful. But clearly prog can handle the Dutch language.

The opening song by Leap Day, especially written for this album, directly sets the standard high; this is certainly not a left-over song donated for this album, but a truly fine symphonic piece of music that makes the listener curious to hear more of this group; definitely one of the highlights on the album. 21 Eyes Of Ruby is a new name for me; their song starts like a true ballad with a minimal decoration, but after the long slow intro the bombast kicks in and it all becomes rather epic; just too bad about the fade-out ending; but still another group to further explore. Spanish group Harvest delivered a brand new song, with strong Marillion influences, but with a south-European touch; the a bit whispering singing style by Dutch singer Monique makes it sometimes difficult to understand what’s she’s singing and it sounds like she’s already living abroad for some time since her Dutch is not totally accent free anymore. Still quite a nice song, although a bit flat in variation and excitement all way through. Bruut Pitt is actually the musical project from Ruud Rijnbeek who’s running, together with Gerben Klazinga, the Studio The Pitt. This is the only other artist that is yet unfamiliar to me. The song he produced here is not so licked as the famous actor he sort of named himself after; the Dutch lyrics do sound a bit unnatural on some spots as if they don’t fit in there, but as a matter of fact there aren’t much lyrics in the song anyway, the guitar-driven instrumental second part of the song rocks solid though. The Aurora Project re-recorded one of their ballads for this album and their long stretched vocals work very fine in Dutch too.

Seagulls open the song Flamborough Head wrote especially for this album and with this song they again prove what a vast crowd of insiders already know; this is one of the best Dutch prog bands ever! For some reason never received the recognition they deserve, but their, very Renaissance influenced, contribution to this album should be another clear indication to check out more of this group! Definitely one of the highlights on this album. Knight Area already accomplished a well deserved worldwide acknowledgement, and they prove that a real solid rock ballad also sounds good in Dutch; in fact I even prefer their Dutch version over the original English version since it just sounds a bit more powerful and contrasting in this version!.

Ulysses is another name not so familiar to most, still building up their name and even though they delivered a nice song it’s clear they don’t have state-of-the-art equipment at their disposal since the recording of their love ballad sounds a bit flat and dull. Nice Beaver is actually one of the very few to produce a more heavier sound on this album; I truly don’t believe the Dutch language isn’t apt for faster and heavier songs, but somehow almost all artists choose a slower, often ballad like song for this compilation. Their song Tijdlijn (Timeline) includes sound fragments of some breaking news moments in recent Dutch history (for instance the killing of Pim Fortuyn); this is clearly a song with a message. A message, pollution of the seas, is also included in the song by PBII (formerly known as Plackband), that starts with the sound of whales. But the Den Haag accent used together with the lyrics itself bring a smile to any Dutch listener bringing back fond memories to Jacobse & Van Es, the 2 characters played by Dutch comics Koot & Bie who became so popular 2 decades ago that they easily could have been elected into parliament (which they wisely choose to avoid). Besides that this protest song from the Den Haag based band with a clear message to the politicians residing in their own city is also musically seen another highlight on this album, very varied and with some surprising ideas.

So all in all I’m very enthusiastic about this album, not only because it’s unique, proves a point and is a nice compilation of good Dutch prog bands, but also since musically it’s a well worth listen! I actually want to throw it into the face of all these nagging Dutch artists saying Dutch sung music is so underrated and then come up with the 753th version of some tedious ballad, sing-a-long or tearjerker that only people who can handle no more than 20 notes per minute really like; if these people are sincere about giving more attention to quality Dutch sung music let them play this album to really prove a point! But I find it difficult to rate it since it’s a compilation of various groups and exists of a mixture of re-recorded and new songs, so I’ll just recommend it. The first 100 people who purchased a copy in the advance sale (to partly finance this project) are mentioned in the booklet. Lyrics for al songs can be found on the website www.prognl.nu. Besides the pre-sales copies a limited edition additional batch was made of this album. At the moment of writing less than 100 copies are still available, so I advise you to hurry to order your copy at: www.prognl.nu The price is only 10 euros for the The Netherlands and 12,50 euro for the rest of the world (both including postage costs), so order now! The only thing I don’t like about this album is: why didn’t we come up with this idea…..? respect to Progwereld!

Conclusion: Not Rated, But Very Recommended !!!

JORIS DONKEL

Progwereld.org
De Nederlandstalige website is al tien jaar een begrip in de wereld van de progressieve en symfonische rock.  Met meer dan 3.000 cd recensies, het laatste nieuws, concertverslagen, interviews, specials en columns is het een van de meest uitgebreide websites op dit gebied ter wereld! Wist je dat Progwereld.org meer dan 40.000 bezoekers per maand kent? Uniek is ook de Wereldse Tien, de enige interactieve maandelijkse lijst van wat er momenteel hot is in de progwereld. Progwereld is eigentijds, eigenwijs en nieuwsgierig. Om ons tien jarig jubileum te vieren brengen wij in samenwerking met negen Nederlandse topbands het verzamelalbum PROG NL uit. Mis het niet!

Met vriendelijke proggroet,
Het Progwereld team


BESTELLEN VAN DE CD “PROG NL”

Dit album is volledig uitverkocht.