1er Album de Neeskens

The young man looks dazed & out of phase, as if we just interrupted him between privileged moments, making or listening to music, or suspended somewhere in high altitude, where air is rarefied. Under his gaze however you sense a firm disposition, as he looks to the camera with resolute yet interrogative eyes. Picture him just back from a scientific mission, after a long trip on a solitary icebreaker, wearing this insufficiently protective parka, opening up a sealed box in which he collected small life scraps, which he will now decipher before handing them out to us. From explorations in another universe, Neeskens returns bearing songs ethereal and earthly, rugged and gentle; strangely fit for a nomadic life midway between mountaintops and holy grounds. The double vowel is a testimonial to his wandering spirits. Born in Groenlo in the Guelders province, stronghold of the Hapsburg House, Territory of the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish Netherlands, Neeskens went on to his own discovery of the New World, disembarking in Canada, where the English language, natural beauty and the piano formed his spirits and education. If the Old World finally allured him back, Neeskens never forgot the severe charms of biting cold and heavy snow, and the aesthetics of hard work. He therefore settled in Annecy, capital of the feudal territory of the House of Savoy, home of the Arts and Culture, where no effort is spared. With new instruments, he started to explore other landscapes, either more intimate or more vertical. Guitars, singing and writing soon joined the piano, all of which were then furrowed by the crystalline elements typical of the Alps: air, earth and fire. Neeskens’ music, as much as his own life, is akin to a crossroads. Here is an abundance of colours, lives, places, traces and questions. His music does not scream for attention, but it will grab you by its emotional qualities. It is that small light guiding you at night to the end of the road, back to the warmth of Home. Its melancholy is sweet and comforting, as protective as Groenlo’s walls on the sleeve of his record. Neeskens’ shadows reveal other spirits created by solitary creators, such as Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, Andrew Bird or Damien Rice: a never-ending tradition of craftsmen honing their art. His melodies will long continue to bear us in needful times, and bewitch us as we hurry back home to put the needle down on his record again.