Jeux d’Eau: Nits as Impressionists

The Fifth Shape is an Umbrella

When Maurice Ravel composed his piano piece “Jeux d’Eau” in 1901 it was considered a novelty, introducing something previously unheard in the pianistic language of its time. It soon was labeled as the arrival of impressionism in music, in close analogy to the fresh style of hazy images that had emanated from the work of painters such as Claude Monet. It was a music dedicated to creating musical images, to evoking a certain mood and atmosphere or to capturing images that were often laid down or alluded to in the title of the works. “Jeux d’Eau” was one such piece where the sounds and the images of water are awakened in the ears and mind of those who listen. It is a way of composing which I have always found to be similar in scope and intention to the compositional approach of Nits, light-footed and playful. 
And particularly water – as in rain or rivers, lakes or canals – has been a much loved object of play for Nits. Their chefs-d’oeuvre Giant Normal Dwarf and Ting – to name but two – are full of water games. From a charming “Ice Princess” to a somewhat eccentric “Fountain Man”, from the tiny drop of water of “Ting” and the vast amounts required to form a “River”, the waterboys of Nits like to be surrounded by the fresh and clear, fluid (or frozen) material and they like playing with it in all sorts of musical fantasies that they have constructed of and around the water. “Two Skaters” and “The Swimmer“ are two more, much celebrated instances of their water plays in a more gloomy reflection on reality.

Although light and lightness are some of the main features of the musical sound of Nits, the sun does not often shine in their songs. The sun is not appearing often from behind the lyrical clouds. Rather like in Debussy’s – another “impressionist” composer – “Jardins Sous la Pluie”, Nits’ universe could be described as a “Monde sous la Pluie”, a world of water, a world under rainy skies. This seems to be Nits’ natural habitat. No sulking involved though, the rain is just nature’s expression of melancholy I guess, together with those white and blue or grey clouds. Quite the contrary, c’est une pluie “qui chatouille”, a rain that tickles you, as Ravel has had it inscribed by the poet Henri de Régnier on his manuscript of “Jeux d’Eau”. Besides being a descriptive, everyday object, clouds could also refer to the thinking and somewhat troubled mind, to worries perhaps or to dreams or fears that are always present in our perception of reality. In the daydreaming, meditative beauty of the song that is “26 A (Clouds in the Sky)”, they seem to symbolise a mind lost in thoughts, a preoccupied mind pondering its fragile existence. I like to see the puffy, gentle clouds in the Nits world as little reminders of our human nature, which is not really one of clear, blue skies. Our reality is always somewhat troubled or distorted by our fears, worries or dreams. Nits aren’t really surrealists by nature, like René Magritte – the painter of white clouds in a blue sky – essentially is, but they certainly have these elements added to the description of the everyday world which signify the presence of wonder or even strangeness, of a distortion of reality, in a very innocent way. In one of their most idiosyncratic songs “House of the Sleeping Beauties”, the route that water or the rain takes – falling down on the asphalt pavement, floating in gutters of the street and down the drainpipes underneath the house – leads to some sort of a strange underworld of fantasy, of a house of sleeping beauties. “Under a Canoe” depicts an ominous world of water faced by a shirtless swimmer in blue. The clarity and fluidity of water have given rise to many an imaginative character or place in the universe of Nits. In the video of the song “Radioshoes”, it even opens up a way to the other side of the world, all that is needed is a kettle and a large bowl of water to disappear in. There’s certainly more than meets the eye to this essential material element constituting the Nits world. And to all the objects – almost like toys or attributes in their musical plays, like stage props – present in the Nits world: they are often shrouded in a little mystery and magic which counters their everydayness. In the lyrics, eyes and hands of Henk Hofstede, objects of all sorts gain a tenderness and beauty, even a mystery that is very close to the way they appear on the canvasses of painters. In the sensuous “Wool” song “Strawberry Girl” the girl and the red fruit are at the centre of a scene not unlike Edouard Manet’s “Déjeuner sur L’Herbe”, a picnic of food and drink set on the banks of a river. An impressionist, musical depiction of a figurative, poetic scene. Objects, just like water, become a matter of play: jeux d’eau, jeux de nuages, jeux d’objets, jeux de fruits.  Nits create nuanced, subtle, open but understated impressions of a world, with objects that deliver colours and sounds, and a music that makes its way through our world with the ease of the natural flow of water.

This French connection of Nits includes yet another composer whose work reminds me of a certain technique and way of thinking of Nits. It is Eric Satie who had quite a personal and original approach to music . He was also influenced by and collaborated with visual artists and his more minimalistic modus operandi in composing music is certainly an aspect he shares with Nits. Henk Hofstede and Robert Jan Stips often succeed in shaping wonderful little melodies with very simple means, something I also detect in some of Satie’s compositions. And these melodies transfigure into lines that can be drawn, into forms and shapes, quite spontaneously. In a way like the title of one of Satie’s works, “Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire”, might suggest. Indeed one of those typical facets of the Nits sound – a feature I noticed from early on in their work – is its form and contours; those Nits melodies are never shapeless, not seldom with a subtle clin d’oeil of a non-conformist bohemian spirit. There are the squares and the circles and everything in between. This alliance or conjunction between sound and form is not deliberately sought, it happened naturally. It’s just the way Nits are. When I last counted, they made at least “huit morceaux en forme de parapluie” … “Rhythm of the Rain”, “Rails and Rain”, “Umbrella”, “Umbrella Army I and II”, “Rainfallagain”, “26 A (Clouds in the Sky)”, “The Wind, The Rain” and “Pockets of Rain”. They are the band with the umbrella. The fifth shape is not a pear, but an umbrella.

Joke Roelandt, April 2024