MEURIS goes solo.A fine number, 2010. Exactly 20 years after Stijn Meuris won HUMO’s Rock Rally with Noordkaap, and exactly 10 years after that band played a last series of concerts and Monza ca...

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MEURIS goes solo.

A fine number, 2010. Exactly 20 years after Stijn Meuris won HUMO’s Rock Rally with Noordkaap, and exactly 10 years after that band played a last series of concerts and Monza came into being from Noordkaap's ashes, now the circle is complete for the most idiosyncratic frontman of the low lands. Both bands are a part of the past, from now on it's MEURIS.
Though that sounds more solo than it is. Stijn Meuris is still singer and writer of lyrics and, as always, distinctive frontman but the domestic harmony has been restored. In concrete terms, that means that a solid live band appears on stage but that the strangling straight-jacket of the concept ‘band’ has been removed. Be sure not to imagine something acoustic or small-scale: MEURIS goes for the energy, CO2-norm or not.
In 2010 that means: a series of concerts based on his older work, though in a seriously modified form. The CD ‘Spectrum’ (EMI) will be released at the end of March and it contains Stijn Meuris' selection of 14 Noordkaap and Monza songs, which went through a sometimes drastic review in the ICP studio in Brussels (under the direction of producer and new keyboard-man Ad Cominotto). The hits of course (at least most of them) but also songs that, according to Meuris, always deserved more attention and that are to be heard on ‘Spectrum’ as they were originally intended to sound. The director’s cut.
That, plus a number of new songs that almost unintentionally saw the light of day, in the heat of the first rehearsals.
To make it short: MEURIS is vintage Meuris. Sharp, right down to the bone, and highly unique, both in tone and in language. An exceptional project that is only to be seen in 2010.

Live-première : 1 April 2010, Ancienne Belgique.