NITS SISTERS (dedicated to my little sister)

The thirteenth shape is La Dame Blanche

“Two Skaters” and “Two Sisters” are like twin songs. Both, works of art in their own right with this mysterious blend or combination of a somewhat haunting narrative, literally set in a tectonically designed landscape which the music creates so patiently and observantly. Basically these two sister-songs could be a metaphor for a human voice trying to find its way in the strangest, labyrinthian, rhythmic play and games, in which time engages our minds and memories. This metaphor where music tries to make sense of memory, world and narration coming together as one, is spun out by a wonderful rhythmic section in both songs that wander through a recent personal history, and along the way conjure up some images that are some of the most sublime that appear  throughout the stunning picture book that Nits assembled like a collection of old mnemonic photographs. The ice cream floor and the chocolate river … in my mind those two images belong together and are part of a never ending thread of visual or other sensorial reminiscences full of meaning and beauty. A “dame blanche” served with the coolest ice cream topped with a warm chocolate sauce. One sister making her way through the snow in brown shoes, two other sisters in a blue canoe on a chocolate river; sisters on their personal paths through this wondrous enrolling of events which is called history. Music has a flair for history. Nits fabricate music where little, poetic images tell big historic tales. Nits as historians of small and big worlds. Historians of an inner world. Music and images help out.

“With my little sister – In our blue canoe, on a chocolate river – How can I protect you”, this line … it most certainly is one of the most stunning moments in the Nits repertoire. You can hear in the prosodic movement and the melody how Henk’s voice sinks deep and deep into his soul or I don’t know into which part of himself where he visualises these shared memories that become poetry in music … Only music can offer this kind of refuge from heartache. And then there’s the rhythm that seems to want to retreat for a moment – as if to create a little space where time can stand still for just a second – to make place for the devastation, the immensity of the moment expressed by Henk Hofstede’s voice … The rhythm that Rob Kloet chisels out of the large block of time is out of this world. I suppose it’s just the drama of history and time moving forward relentlessly, that we are hearing. But somehow – I don’t know how he does this – Rob Kloet is able to express the hesitancy, the doubt, the wavering thought of human frailty against the backdrop of the necessity and fate of what it means for a human being to belong to time, and to the rhythm of time only. This ambivalence so beautifully expressed in this complicated rhythmic journey. As only a philosopher of time can. In fact the whole album “angst” sounds like a discipline of rhythm: the rhythm of history so beautifully portrayed both in its stubborn linearity and its vicious circling movements of no escape. I know it’s just music, but here in this song it cannot hide its spherical inspiration…

The fantasy world of Nits seeps into every aspect of their work: the music, the lyrics, the stage performances, the decor, the film and photo projections, the lighting, design of the albums, the video clips … One of the first images that I fell in love with in the language of Nits was the “ice cream floor” upon which the two skaters are gliding through the world. Although the song sounds somewhat eerie and ominous, the images used by Henk Hofstede in his lyrics are those of a sweet childhood time of wonder and mystery. Just a few words can often lend the Nits songs this tenderness of a young world. It is a character trait their work has never lost, even in the darkest moments of their musical life. When their studio was destroyed by fire, they told us their tale of loss and sorrow in the form of a little fable of a tree and a bird. It is the charm of Nits. It reminds me of the novels of my favourite writer Banana Yoshimoto – she is Japanese – and in her work too happiness and hope are always present as the fundamental mode of expression. It is like the characters of my old comic books -Tintin and Suske & Wiske, Asterix & Obelix – who often endure awful experiences in their made-up world, but somehow manage to keep their unspoiled naivety and charming candour. It is the sort of imagery and language that our world – with only few exceptions – is about to lose. The tone nowadays balances most of the time between a cheesy sentimentality or a brutal and crude expression of facts. The magic and wonder of the world have almost been forgotten. But Nits will never let that happen. 

The song “Two Sisters” is so enormously photogenic and cinematic. When Henk Hofstede sings the lines I already quoted “With my little sister – In our blue canoe, on a chocolate river – Falling asleep” (Banana also wrote a novel with the title “Asleep”, sleep is a major theme in her work, its connotation of a soft surrender to the world is something that you can find in the work of Nits too), you still feel all the danger of a menacing world, but yet the beauty of the scene of the two sisters drifting away in the blue canoe on a river smelling of chocolate is so very endearing; it could be a hauntingly beautiful scene from a movie … with just a touch of sweetness. The music almost feels like the servant in this instance, asked to conjure up the most poignant setting for this image of the past that somehow lingers in the mind of the lyricist. Yes, the music of Nits has a purpose, you can feel that in almost every song, it wants to tell the story of a world, of a life, the musical forms wrapping themselves around the protagonists in the songs to create them the most fabulous environment to dwell in and communicate what their world feels like. I always know that a song of Nits will take me somewhere, somewhere in time. This may sound somewhat strange, but I have always loved the “sense of purpose” that seems to be around in the work of Nits. A “raison d’être”, that is there without fault and which elevates their whole oeuvre into an expression of a universal story that is there for a reason, intently fashioned and with an almost duty like commitment. In all its innocence, the work of Nits conveys tremendous strands of meaning throughout. The music of Nits doesn’t beat about the bush: it is clear, crystalline, limpid and succinct. Music, world and being are like interlaced strands of a plait in their work. And they all change constantly … together. Nits give us this intense feeling that music, even more than anything else we can experience through the senses, is an essential element of our story, of each and everyone’s life. If we don’t listen with our whole being, we will miss the important details that nothing else is able to give us. This is what Nits want to tell I think, they want to make the story of life and world more complete, more true, more beautiful. This is their vocation. To tell things in the diaphanous, imaginative language of music while trying to stay close to our material world and its shapes, lines and colours, tastes and smells. Music feels what it is like to live in the world. Nits made that clear to me. They proved this “axiom” of the mystery behind the mathematics of music indisputably.

And “la dame blanche” is a favourite dessert in my family – always has been: my dad’s and mine and perhaps also my little sister’s. I hope you’ll enjoy this sweet dessert too this summer and will think for a moment about those delightful Nits sisters and their moment in time. 
That there is no bitterness in the world.

Joke Roelandt, July 2024