The b-ness of très.b
“We started with covering PJ Harvey’s song Who the F__k,” says très.b’s guitarist Olivier Heim “Back then it was still just me, Tom and Misia. The music was rough, unpolished. B-class. In French ‘très b’ means ‘very b’.”
“We still have this b-ness in us. We make a very b-class type of music. And we are très cool,” Olivier laughs.
An international band
Widely known by the Maastricht audience très.b doesn’t limit its artistic presence to Limburg. The band’s international heritage is an asset when it comes to organising gigs in other parts of the Netherlands and abroad. Misia Furtak (vocals, bass) is Polish, Oliver Heim (guitar, keyboards, vocals) is half Dutch and half American, Alex Beuk (guitar, keyboards, vocals) is half Dutch and half Spanish, while Thomas Pettit (drums) is also a mix – English and Danish.
The band performs mostly in the Netherlands and Poland, but has also given shows in Germany, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg and Belgium. In the early days (without Alex) très.b did some gigs in Denmark and France as well.
It all began in Luxembourg, where the three guys started playing music together. Tom [Thomas] explains: “Alex and Oli [Olivier] have known each other since they were two years old. I met Oli when we were 13.” Their skills and style evolved with time and shared experience.
After highschool Alex moved to Maastricht to study at Maastricht University. Oli and Tom decided to join the Testrup Hojskole music school in Denmark, where they met Misia. Together they covered PJ Harvey’s “Who the F__k” and this is how the band started off in 2004. After completing school, the trio eventually moved to Maastricht and was joined by Alex in 2006.
Björk with a cold?
“We are mostly defined as indie rock à la PJ Harvey, or sometimes as melancholic pop,” Alex says. “I don’t really agree with those definitions though. We play too many different types of music. If I had to somehow define our style, I’d say something like eclectic indie pop-rock.”
The Dutch music magazine OOR said that “Misia Furtak sounds like a mix between PJ Harvey and Bjork with a cold and [très.b’s] roaring guitars resemble bands like Sonic Youth.” *
In Oli’s opinion however, “naming doesn’t make that much sense in our case, as we’re not trying to play a particular style of music”. Alex adds: “Unless you say ‘let’s play strictly e.g. jazz’ such defining doesn’t work very well, there’s too much to it.”
OK, by très.b
Julie van Oost from the Belgian Cutting Edge music magazine seems to agree. In her review of the band’s Neon Chameleon EP (2006) she writes: “The strongpoint of the group [is that] they are able to tackle different styles and in so doing leave the play-a-certain-genre mentality behind them.” *
To define the music for yourself, check out the band’s MySpace profile. Another option is to go to one of the group’s upcoming performances (9 and 11 July in Poland).
Kickin’ it live
All in all, the band has been around. “Currently, we are touring mostly the Netherlands and Poland. In 2007 we gave about 10 concerts in Poland and about 40 in Holland.” The musicians’ faces are concentrated as they perform the math. Denmark might get added to the musical map, but plans are still blurry. For the time being très.b will give four shows (half/half Poland and the Netherlands) and work on a new album after the summer holidays.
“It’s cool to play for a big audience,” says Misia. “When we played with Hey [Polish band] there were about 2-3,000 people. The biggest crowd was probably on some outdoor festival, maybe in Roermond… that could have been somewhere between 3-6,000 people.”
As the band’s vocalist, therefore also the one who most interacts with the audience, Misia explains that there is usually more response when lots of people show up. “But I think our coolest performance was when we played in our neighbour’s room. There were like twenty people and you could really feel the closeness between us and the people who were there.” It needs to be added that Misia, Olivier and Tom live together.
Time constraints sometimes put a limit to the amount of gigs. As a last year UCM student, Olivier has to find a balance between performing on stage and performing - fairly well - at the university. The other group members are busy too. Tom works part-time and Alex is doing an audio-engineering course in Utrecht. He commutes between Maastricht and Utrecht once a week. As for Misia, after obtaining her Master’s in Media Culture at the UM last year, she currently works part-time for Fast Forward Music Management, a music management and marketing agency in Maastricht.
“Atmospheric lyrics”
The reviews for très.b have been enthusiastic. For example, the Dutch Fret magazine writes: “Neon Chameleon doesn’t bore you for a second and makes you curious about their new material.”
The only points of criticism relate to personal preferences of the reviewer, like the fact that listeners can’t always understand the lyrics. “Misia’s singing is rather expressive than focussed on stressing the lyrics of the songs. Our lyrics are open for interpretation, they are supposed to be atmospheric, represent images and shape stories by expressing those images,” Olivier says.
Misia’s voice is usually the main point of acclaim in reviews. In the same article Fret adds: “The shining centrepiece of the band is the singer/bassist Misia Furtak. Her touching, expressive singing lines successfully collide with the chords played in Ola on numerous occasions.”
The visual quality of performances was officially recognised when the band won the most creative band award at the 2008 edition of the Dutch Nu of Nooit music competition. The music and the visual aspects of performances are prepared democratically but usually it’s Misia who is behind the writing of the lyrics. She also cooperates a lot with the band’s manager Roy Maenen when it comes to organisational and promotional activities.
Those of you who’ve been to très.b’s concerts know that they rarely happen without the use of props, like an inflatable microphone to invite the audience to sing along, lots of soap bubbles, masks, weird instruments and a big dose of interaction with the audience.
“Some years ago Alex found and bought a zither (type of string drum) on the Dutch eBay. Like all the crazy instruments we use, the zither became a communal instrument in the band and I started using it in shows and for the recordings of Scylla and Charybdis,” Misia says. Other unusual sounds include water spilling, the biting of a cracker, a cat’s miaowling and dry leaves rustling. These sound effects were used in très.b’s last album Scylla and Charybdis and in Misia’s solo project Misia is Mju.
The annual sparkle
“We don’t really consider ourselves a Maastricht band. Our connection with this city exists in the sense that we currently live here. But there definitely is an option of moving out at some point,” Tom says.
It can be argued that it is indeed more beneficial for bands to create music in bigger cities, closer to the main commercial industry centres. Such places are typically also more inspiring than small ones. But only Misia seems to fully share this view: “When I’m in places like Amsterdam or Berlin, ideas flow differently than here. In Maastricht I’ve had such moments, um, let me count… three times since I moved here two-and-a-half years ago. That means I get one annual sparkle. In bigger cities this rate is much higher.” The guys however seem to be inspired no matter the location.
“The cool thing about the small scale of Maastricht, though, is the fact that the music scene is so close-knit,” says Misia.“As the city authorities cooperate very little with us, Maastricht musicians come together and create their own scene instead of counting on the authorities’ support. Muziekgiterij is a great place, very helpful. There are lots of good bands in Maastricht, the geographic location is advantageous. Musically, what the city really needs is a proper venue and a festival.” très.b seems to share the view of many young people in Maastricht about the vast potential the city is wasting by not being forward-looking enough. “The only advantage of the current situation is that now the scene is being created by the people who have a real interest in developing it.”
b-ness
“We would like the idea of recording a song in Polish.” The guys who all are non-Poles get quite excited about the vision. “Spanish and French could also be cool”. What about Dutch? The response is unanimous: “Exclude!” And they laugh.
très.b’s current plan is to release a single and the band is now working on it with some people in the United States. A new album also seems to be in the planning, likely for 2009. Recording could start at the end this year. Something to look forward to!
When asked about their biggest achievements so far, the four musicians are definitely positive about the current state of their career: “Achievement is a prize which is not necessarily a tangible reward. It’s when people like your music, it’s the fact that we’re still together and still able to find a way to work together. And that we still have the b-ness in us.”
By Hania Piotrowska
Hania Piotrowska is a Polish student at University College Maastricht.
Note:
* English translation
More information:
très.b website
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- Maastricht turns to Student Think Tank for advice
