While The Guitar Gently Waits

“Fire In My Head”, this Nits “spiritual” most certainly is one of the band’s most loved songs. It is an expression of Nits’ sensibility where matter and spirit form an intrinsic unity. Stones and angels, birds and snowflakes all take part in this little song of worship of life. Universal themes come together in a concrete setting of water and fire, earth and sky.

It’s a song about the desire of life as it is present in all beings, about the desire, the appetite for life. The song couldn’t be any closer to the spirit that governs the work of the Dutch rationalist philosopher Baruch de Spinoza who was born in Amsterdam, Nits-city in 1632, in the midst of the Dutch Golden Age and incidentally in the same year the painter Johannes Vermeer was born. Desire is our way of being and it is the continuous motor that spurs us on in this life.

Nits just know how to render this subtle but unwavering drive in the sweetest musical embodiment through percussion that seems to originate and fall from the sky, a piano that glistens like water, a deep desire wrestling itself out of the belly of a cello and another keyboard slowly making its way through this Swiss town by the lake.

The stone, the field and shield bring some ancient, primeval feel to the song, almost as if we were transported back to a medieval time, which is then even more emphasised by Henk Hofstede’s lyrical referral to the old legend of the fight between Saint Georges and the dragon. The Swiss town becomes like an eternal city or dwelling where human life is being portrayed in its essence: just a few words, just a slow and pensive reflection proceeding in music, a few chimerical details that float through the air and Nits have sketched the outlines of a profound story of man’s condition. It’s about the battle between good and evil as allegorised in the fight between Saint Georges and the dragon, an old legend that through the Byzantine tradition was transferred to Western Christianity reflecting the even older conflict between light and darkness.

But all this sounds far too high-handed when you hear the humble, nuanced touches of the music. The simplicity and candour with which Nits provide this universal picture is their unique capability of doing just that: a big story in a few moments. It’s remarkable how Henk Hofstede knows how to choose the right words – only a small handful of words – and pick the right image – an old legend that was immortalised in a widespread iconography of the saint and the dragon – to arrive at this tender depiction of human life, where a deep sense of history is present. The percussion of Rob Kloet and Peter Meuris and the piano play of Robert Jan Stips make time so light, centuries fly by in mere seconds. But the cello knows that the passing of time is the heaviest thing of all…

It all has the perhaps naive or innocent implication that what you long for is necessarily something good. Nits never judge, they always believe that life and the desire to live inspire us to be good. It’s this sweet inclination that is ever present in the music and lyrics of Nits – very much in the way of the thinking of Spinoza – that makes their sound so disarming and inviting. Theirs is an enchanting world that is rooted in ancient artistic traditions and concepts, and in a tender philosophy of nature and its elements. It is like looking at an old painting by some old master of a fighting scene, in a church by candle light, and thinking that good will always defeat bad. Nits never give in to the darkness. They believe in the goodness of life and their music is their endearing testimonial to this Spinozist way of being.

And the birds in the waving trees, whose song inspires the singer to be free in this world… A free person desires the joy of living in a world, that he tries to understand. This joy of the world is what Nits have always brought to us.

Baruch – with his grinding and cutting of optical lenses and his work on the development of a microscope -, Johannes – with his intimate portrayals of figures (mostly women absorbed in an activity of the mind or handling objects) in a domestic interior, surrounded by everyday objects – and Henk, Rob en Robert Jan – with their meticulous art of sound and vision -, share a passion for the essential details of our existence without ever losing sight of the bigger picture. Baruch’s occupation as a grinder of lenses demanded a lot of patience and discipline; it was said that Johannes Vermeer was a very slow painter, taking plenty of time to finish his works. Just like Nits they both worked with the patience of a little fire in their heads, that kept their creativity alive.

Joke Roelandt, October 2023