Willem Smit: “Remember that time we, we had Chinese for breakfast, and you threw up in the sink?”
Pip Blom: “You’re a pig and you know it, a lovely waste of time”
These are the first lines from Willem Smit and Pip Blom on ‘Pig’ the opening track on their new album recorded as Long Fling. The pair have been in a relationship for ten years during which they have spent time apart touring in their respective bands (Pip Blom and Personal Trainer). The couple have tried collaborating before and it didn’t always end well but Long Fling has ended up being the perfect project at the right time. In that decade, the pair have grown to know each other and become more comfortable with the recording process and settled on a way of working that has combined their innate ability to write spectacular indie rock and also give us a glimpse into their home life.
Maybe it’s the collision of two fiercely creative minds, each with a strong musical identity, that has meant this album fizzes and crackles with so many ideas that collide and explode into such exciting music. There are light and dark moments, softness on tracks like ‘Weird Peace’ with its dry production, popping candy riffs and haunting chorus, and ‘Flung’ with its atonal guitar effects, synth-bass pulses, and woozy vocals sliding over the top.
The smears of strings on ‘Pig’ echo the drunken theme and the lo-fi sweetness of ‘For Someone’ is built on a tinny home-recorded guitar loop, hypnotic bass line and what sounds like a Stylophone solo. There is some outstanding guitar playing with angular chords and riffs on tracks like ‘Waste Line’ plus the occasional pyroclastic bursts of distortion that buffet sweet and savoury tunes such as you hear on ‘Tossed’. One of the special things about the album is how conversational it is. They sing to each other like people talk, there are no harmonies between their two voices just call and response, counterpoint and unison singing. It’s a window into the glorious minutiae of a relationship with the lyrics often constructed from the day-to-day of their lives. ‘Tossed’ has a great example:
Willem: “A stack of unpaid bills, a little paper cut. A ball of mouldy bread. A shiny fire truck. A bowl of lobster claws. I buy my niece a bike. I try to miss some calls, sat through a silent night.”
Pip: “A broken bathroom door, December money month. I found another sock, the one I wear has holes. I try to fix my bed. Bought records I regret. What is it that you want? December money month.”
Long Fling is the drunken night out and the hangover all rolled into one set of songs. It captures the wonderful collage of a relationship which may be built on love but also come packed with lust, bickering, boredom, break-ups and make-ups, and shopping lists. I hope some enterprising Netherlands production company options Long Fling for a streaming series, 10 songs for 10 episodes that juxtaposes the frenzy of life on the road for two bands with the domestication of home life.
This is an album that contains the DNA of both artists and, given how amazing both their bands are, it’s not surprising that together they have produced an album that will ride high in the top 10 lists being compiled for the end of this year.
Pip Blom: Website |Instagram | Facebook Willem Smit: Instagram
Personal Trainer: Website | Instagram | Facebook
Review by Paul F Cook
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