At the start of the new millennium, Axel Kabboord and Minco Eggersman from at the close of every day were recording their second album the silja symphony in René de Vries’ studio in Amsterdam. Taking a break, the three started toying with some electronic sounds and, before they knew it, came up with the ambient track ‘alive in ‘45’. Dubbing their one day project ‘HILLMADELOW’, they decided to release the track on the first edition of compilation series The Pet Series (feat a.o. Spinvis, the innocence mission, Serena Maneesh, at the close of every day, Scout Niblett, Rosie Thomas). Some great reactions came in, but the guys were too busy with other projects to take HILLMADELOW to a next level.
Enter guitarist Pierre Maulini from the populair band M83 and A Red Season Shade, another French band whose record Minco and René were producing a few years later. When he heard hillmadelow, he was immediately excited and shared some of his own ideas he’d been recording on his laptop. With Axel too busy to rejoin the project, Pierre took his place and became hillmadelows guitarist and lead singer. The trio came up with enough ideas for a complete album, and started recording in Renés studio. To complete the enchanting sound they had in mind, the guys called in their friend Alice ten Brinke, (ex- Ponoka), to add some angelic vocals to the mix.
In the meantime HILLMADELOW had its debut with the irresistibly atmospheric ‘we make flowers out of plastic bags’ in Japan (This Time Records) and the response has been great so far.
Take the title literally if you want: fusing all kinds of ‘plastic’ sounds – samples, synths, electronics – the band has created a record that lives and breathes. Varying from catchy popsongs like ‘camouflage’ to soothing soundscapes like ‘misunderstood!’, it works like a soundtrack to a movie playing in your head.
