Since leaving Dutch band The Ex, GW Sok – real name Jos Kleij – has spent the last two decades channelling his muse through various projects. His dry wit and often caustic worldview can be heard in collaborations with Oiseaux-Tempête, Lukas Simonis, and King Champion Sounds, to name a handful. The GW in his stage name stands for geitenwollen, and here geitenwollen sok, or sokken (‘goats wool socks’) are the Dutch equivalent of the hair shirt, or the socks with sandals brigade. An implied morality Sok has been happy to subvert this past forty-odd years.
Sok’s new collaboration, Sopa Boba, with dramaturg Jean Vangeebergen and musician Pavel Tchikov, is something else again. In the project’s record, That Moment, Sok narrates Moldavian writer Nicoleta Esinencu’s text to impart a tale of “the downward spiral of the capitalist society”. At first reading, it’s a conceit well trodden in western European theatre circles: a hybrid artform beloved of funding types, combining modern and classical music (and doubtless some manifestation of performance art at some point) to bring tales of the underbelly to the chattering classes.
Older and wiser readers will, on listening, hear that Esinencu’s subject matter isn’t really that far away from some of The Ex’s; low-level takes of violence and street-level cunning in the face of an uncaring and exploitative state hierarchy. Though Esinencu’s tale – what happens after a father cuts off his son’s finger with an axe as retribution for stealing some money – is more graphic and bathetic throughout. Closer in spirit and societal mores to Emir Kusturica’s Underground. And no barked instructions about how to deal with the mobiele eenheid…
And boy, do we get bathos: the tale played out in this album isn’t easy, and the instrumentation wants to make that point, over and over. From the off, with the opening track ‘That Sweet Moment’, we get feelings and atmosphere applied with the broad sweeps of a plasterer’s trowel. A battery of modular synths operated by Tchikov and Stéphane Diskus pummel the listener. Now and again a string quintet (three violins, a viola and a cello) punctures the thick soundscape to add a keening tone of regret. Synths swap thick aural sediment for thuds and bangings now and again. There are silences, though: that’s when Sok soliloquises and says “daddy” a lot in his most gravelly voice. It’s not the easiest of starts.
But stick with it. As the tale unfolds you find you want to resolve what’s going on. The synths become more malleable and amenable, the beats more supple and effective in determining pace and mood, and the string sections have more colour in their cheeks.
And we thank the heavens for Sok, who uses all his stagecraft to fully inhabit the tale and worldview of the young boy. Maybe we sense that he has fully adopted the role of a cynical narrator who’s not without his genial, even gentle moments. Thanks to this he’s able to create convincing arguments between the characters, and clearly impart the constant (parental) paranoia and the implicit menace of corruption in a track like ‘That Perfect Moment’. He also leans in on the sensual where he can: hearing the slightest tone of humour when Sok says the words “Gangnam Style” in ‘That Beautiful Moment’ is a joy.
Last tracks ‘That Catholic Moment’ and ‘That Magic Moment’ are possibly the album highlights. The opening lines of That Catholic Moment are masterful, with Sok breathing all his world weary persona into them and the doleful strings – with their thoughts turned heavenwards doubtless – add a bone dry humour. ‘That Magic Moment’ is where the modular synths really come into play, just by having the space to be modular synths: monolithic and golem-like, unconcerned with all the fuss and frippery imposed on them when “creating a backdrop”. They get the chance to let rip, like a machine gun, right at the end. The strings add an Ariel-like counterpart that is very refreshing, too. And Esinencu’s opening lines and Sok’s delivery are hilarious, inspiring even. I wonder if it’s actually worth beginning your listen with these two tracks… Even so: stick in there, and you will gain enlightenment.
