** STINKSISTERS NOT DEAD *
*** we just smell funny **

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1992 - 2017 /// NL bio HIER

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Stinksisters celebrates its 25th anniversary with the mini lp Lucky Dancer. The six new songs recorded by this illustrious Rotterdam trio in LGM Studio with technician / producer Chris van Velde (Rats On Rafts, Iguana Death Cult) are the first release since the 2010 album More Songs Of Love And War.

The last quarter of a century, in which Stinksisters found theirselves on the cutting edge of the Rotterdam underground, culminates on a vinyl record that almost bounces the needle in depth and rawness: sticky and smelly garage rock with deep growling bass and dirty guitar layers. At the same time songs like Lucky Dancer and City Of Winds sound remarkably melodious and the misty doom-covered S.L.D. even vulnerable, with their wiry intertwined male/female singing together. The theatrical closing song Temps de Vivre is a musical adaptation of the eponymous poem by Boris Vian. In the hypnotic second part, the dark trumpet of the French musician and composer Pierre Bastien dominates.

The long road to Lucky Dancer started in the early 90's when bassist Jan Willem van Hemert met his future wife, drummer and singer Française Catherine Richard (Cati). That was in the French Bourges during Printemps de Bourges festival where JW played with the legendary Rotterdam band Bat Attack. Shortly thereafter, Bat Attack disintegrated and after JW had played with Figurehead for a while, the young couple founded Stinksisters with singer / guitarist Peter Donkers (Footsnakes). After the departure of Peter, the group became mainly a coming and going of illustrious Rotterdam underground icons such as Niek den Brave (Debiele Eenheid, Climaxville), Mario Strör (✝ - Debiele Eenheid, No-Men, Soul Survivor) and Harry Merry. Their mix of post-punk, chanson and avant-garde was captured in 1998 on a nameless EP for the French label Zorlac Productions. Eventually everyone left and Peter returned. At More Songs Of Love And War (2010) the group will be heard for the first time in the original line-up.

As a popular live band they always kept a noisy and rowdy freak show, with JW and Peter in elegant dresses, partly because (the always elegant) Cati originally intended to play in a girls band.

Lucky Dancer - on which the rugged live sound was captured - is more than a ruthless trash and garage rock record. Punched in a cover of the Rotterdam illustrator and musician Bruno Ferro Xavier da Silva, it balances the purification, fun, energy and especially the madness of 25 years of Stinksisters.

(tekst: Mark Ritsema, oktober 2017)

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