Nine Circles - ‘Twinkling Stars’
Peter Van Garderen and Lidia The Rose in 1982
Nine Circles - ‘Twinkling Stars’
The Stool Pigeon, Cold Waves review - “There’s a touching story behind ‘Twinkling Stars’ by Dutch group Nine Circles. When Angular Records boss Joe Daniel managed to track down the vocalist to seek permission to use the track on this compilation, she burst into tears. She now calls herself The Rose and runs a foster home in Amsterdam, but she was 14 at the time of the recording, which she had never heard before (it was made without the group’s knowledge). Asked for a photo to go on the record’s sleeve, she submitted a ‘Greetings From Amsterdam’ postcard from the early-eighties. And there she was on the front, eating an ice cream.”
One of the most unusual stories on the compilation. Nine Circles never entered a recording studio and performed only once, at a Dutch radio station in 1982. Unbeknownst to them the engineer recorded the session and over the years it was bootlegged over and over becoming a Flexipop cult track. Lidia the Rose never found out about this until I rang her up last summer. It was a bizarre and emotional phone call. Imagine being told that the music you’d made as a teenager was not lost in the ether after all but in fact a minimal electronic classic of 28 years vintage. Pretty weird.
Here are some of Lidia The Rose’s recollections of her teenage tape loop group and her first love:
“Nine Circles was Peter and me and the time we were together. There is no one who can give me that same feeling with making music.
The song Twinkling Stars was made in a period that I was very much busy with space, wondering when a ufo will come and get me. It was also the time I was very much in love with Peter. I believe there is more out there, we are just a little part of it.
When our relationship ended Nine Circles was no more, we never met again until seven months ago on internet. I had the idea that people did not understand the music and lyrics back than. I only heard a couple of months ago that there was music on a cd and tape. I was very surprised, since than a lot has happened. I am working with Peter together he is sending me the rest of the songs of Nine Circles, and i can do with it what I want.
I think it’s very nice that the music is not forgotten. It was for me a very important and still it is the best I ever had and did. Bringing these memories back gives me a good feeling. What I dream about now is bringing Nine Circles back, there are so many nice songs left that nobody heard yet and maybe this is the time they understand it.”
You can hear Lidia The Rose talking about this and more on the Guardian Music Weekly Podcast from a few weeks ago.
THIS IS COLDWAVE
This was announced today on our website. A pre order link will be available soon.
Angular are proud to announce the forthcoming release of ‘Cold Waves & Minimal Electronics Volume 1’ - a new 17 track compilation put together by New York’s Wierd Records founder Pieter Schoolwerth and Angular’s Joe Daniel.
The album chronicles the secret underground cult genres of cold wave and minimal wave, which mostly originated from continental Europe between the years 1981-1985.
Joe Daniel: “About two years ago my good friend Al O’Connell (aka Alalal) played me some minimal synth tracks that had an immediate and considerable effect on me. They contained analogue synths that sounded sharp and icy instead of the warm squelchy noises that a lot of people use them for; Junos instead of MS20s, backed by the most primitive drum machines and oblique otherworldly vocals.
Most of this music came from early-80s Europe, and most of the groups only recorded a few songs, released a 7″ and then split up before anyone noticed what they were doing. I like the impossible romance you can have with a band when all you’ve got is a tape with three songs on it (all in French) and a single black and white photograph.
Ever since I heard this music I’ve been trawling high and low to unearth the greatest gems of this synth sound in order to make a retrospective artefact of the lost genre of music known as coldwave. With the considerable collaborative help of Pieter Schoolwerth from New York’s Wierd Records, I think we may have done it.”
This release will be available as a double LP gatefold, CD, and digital download on February 22nd.
