“Angst” or the melody of the river and the knitting needles, the melody of the flowers, the rain, and the buttons …

50 Shapes of Nits: The 27th shape are the lits-jumeaux

“The songs did not bring me to the war” Robert Jan Stips points out in a discussion about the album “angst” on the episode “Radio Oranje” of the podcast “Dial Nits”. Yes maybe you would expect an album that centres around memories of wartime to sound very different … In hindsight it would seem that in a true European spirit Henk Hofstede and Nits sought to underline the unitedness between the two nations which after all the turbulences has somehow prevailed. During the dire circumstances of this Second World War, one of its main protagonists Winston Churchill already advocated and laid down the foundations for a stronger European unity. “The arts are essential to any complete national life” Churchill famously stated and I suppose this is also true what regards European life as an assembly of different united nations. Through their work Nits have always underlined this rich underlying cultural unity that holds Europe together; Nits crossed borders and while doing this established somewhat of a European identity and soul in their music which is quite unique in the world of pop music. Somehow these lyrics about mother’s memories of war were inscribed in a more peaceful setting of one who has lived, experienced and come to terms with all that happened. They are stories embedded and rooted in the eternal background of a soft humming of history that paves its way along riverbeds and landscapes of memories. There is nothing aggressive about the music, there is only a strong need and will to remember, to live on and to share… All characteristics that the music of Nits easily adopts.

The musical instruments namely the synthesisers (in Henk Hofstede’s lyrics on this album they are of course of German make) stand together side by side with nature; the river melting as one with the synthesiser in a very demure song of unity – “Zündapp Nach Oberheim” – at the end of the album. The musical instruments offering a place of safety and comfort amidst the surrounding landscape, for ever watching on and witnessing the tribulations of humankind. Through man’s ultimate existentialist Stimmung Angst which emphasises the short-lived transient nature of all things, music stands shoulder to shoulder with nature inspiring both solace and courage.

This tender family album of Europe in both war and peace times feels like an improvisation of navigating through turbulent times with a peaceful heart filled with kindness, courage, reflection, reconciliation and togetherness, an admirable ability to put things into perspective and even some humour at times. What we hear is the soft murmur of the big melody of life, – of all things living and all things present – that floats through the air, through darkness and light; the ordeals and personal histories that are of all times, told in a voice that hovers over war scenes imbued with angst, and aspires only to comfort and reconcile.

The music rising up from the spontaneity of the moment acts as a natural and conscious background of all these particular events. There is something appeasing in the music of “angst” as if being part of these soothing melodies creates a sort of shelter and security for the world and its people to heal once more; there is something reassuring to being part of those softly meandering melodies, the events and feelings of fear can slowly dissolve, taking their rightful, designated spot inside the melodies and musical routes that Nits came up with and reassembled into one. A peaceful and serene atmosphere emanates from the album as a whole which is supported by a strong percussive presence as if it were grounded in a firm European soil.

Those scenes of life (during war times) are set against the wonderful backdrop of the melodies of the rain and the river, the colourful melodies of the flowers, the reassuring melody of the knitting of yellow socks, the lowing of a lonely cow, the creaking and groaning of the lits-jumeaux – “das Stöhnen der Möbel”” as Rainer Maria Rilke wrote in his essay “Notizen Zur Melodie Der Dinge”. Nits always knew how to paint the most luminous, detailed backgrounds through their melodies of things.

Maybe music has always remained somewhat underestimated when it comes to its power of remembering. And vividly recalling and bringing to the fore shared past experiences. We tend to rely more on the visual aspects of memory in old paintings or photographs or in the moving images of films and videos. Or on words. But when you use the words that paint a landscape, take the words that describe your concrete world and all its people in it, the fixtures and attributes and then set them in a musical scenery which registers all the highs and lows and all rhythmic and melodic fluctuations in between, you arrive at something miraculously powerful and intimate at the same time, in capturing the essence of what once was, is here for just a moment and then is gone again. Or is it really … is it really gone for ever …?

Music is the art of lingering in time; it provides us with the tools to bring whichever thing of the past back into the present once more, and lets us hope for the continuation of the melody of life. When we remember together, be it birthdays or any small or big events, we tend to celebrate and remember through music, where time becomes fluid and stretches out to a future yet unknown. To calm the angst, to sooth the uncertainties and struggles which life will cast upon us sooner or later. This manner of remembering and at the same time registering is what Nits have always done through their musical works. This registration of a life-in-time-unfolding, is what music seems to be made for, certainly in the case of Nits. They gathered all their tools, musical instruments, cameras and videocameras, recording and lighting equipment, pencils, paints, oils and paper, iPads, notebooks, … and their work took shape. The music provided the essential time frame in which to display an endless succession of memories.

And it seems that Nits have always sensed this kinship of music with those visual ways of registering memories and expressing experiences or portraying people in the scenes of their lives. That is also the case here on “angst”. In the song “Breitner on a Kreidler” Henk Hofstede lets the music reflect on the art of making photographs or painting portraits or city scenes, in a wonderful reminiscence on the Dutch painter and photographer George Hendrik Breitner. In photographs we never age. As if art always lives in its eternal present, a thought Henk Hofstede seems to relish. In fact this is a constant, recurring theme in his words. The music of Nits in its continuous change, stays for ever young and fresh; it never ages. “Flowershop Forget-me-not” is a song about the nature of life, its fragility and ephemerality, and a plea to never forget what really matters, along with a wish, expressed in the lyrics, to never be forgotten. To remember always the beauty of life no matter what. And the music travels, the artists travel and know of no boundaries: Monet on a Mobylette, Breitner on a Kreidler moving through the Nits world – of the boats, the trains, the bicycles and planes – that we know so well, for ever moving on along the river of music.

To remember … yes … but letting go of the angst. A little army of buttons leading the way to the peaceful land of The Dutch Mountains …

Joke Roelandt, April 2025