Low Kick and Hard Bop September 11, 2001

“Esselink’s real genius is in her massive contextual high jinks — taking the best few seconds that a band might ever play and neatly annexing it to similar bits from dozens of other bands to make a pop Frankenstein’s monster... her unique concept of songcrafting points toward seemingly limitless musical possibilities... Solex creates a new pop ideal.” — Time Out New York

“Solex creates audio paradise from towering mounds of audio refuse.” — Request

“Heavy orchestral cartoon music for carports. William Burroughs as Bugs Bunny. Like ‘Fantasia’ for 60s delinquents, a strong dose of freakout fun.” — Detroit Metro Times

“Like Beck or Cornelius at their best, the kitchen sinks consistently add up to full plumbing works.” — AP

“Elisabeth Esselink is a genius.” — Melody Maker

The craziest, most thrilling effort to date from Dutch sound collage wizard Elisabeth Esselink aka Solex. Not (necessarily) a bop recording, the lost and found sounds resurrected and recombined by Solex would be mere props in anyone else’s hands, not the weapons utilised by Esselink to deadly effect. A master of making something-out-of-nothing, Esselink finds source material that she describes as:

“Old vinyl, crappy un-sellable CD’s (again), television (Wheel Of Fortune!), the ‘better looking’ talk show hosts (they seem to sound better as well), noisy deaf people, films, bootlegs (again), radio, street-noises and animals. The noisy deaf people were my favourites. They do know what they’re talking about, but don’t have a clue what they sound like (opposite to most musicians).”

The results don’t merely “resemble” glorious, oozing-with-technicolor pop songs, but are in fact, the REAL DEAL. The sharp wit and genuinely warped sensibility that made the first two Solex albums such an international success are in abundance on Low Kick and Hard Bop but we’re sure you’ll agree with us that this is the Solex album guaranteed to please the hardcore fan and the uninitiated alike.

Pick Up September 7, 1999

Solex is Elisabeth Esselink. Pick Up was recorded, produced, and mixed entirely by her, in the basement of her record shop in Amsterdam.

While her debut album, Solex Vs. The Hitmeister, was mostly sampled from obscure 25-cent-bin vinyl from her shop (oh, and the Cure), most of the samples on Pick Up are from recordings she made at live shows, ranging from classical stuff to metal bands. Call it a live record of sorts. Pick Up is a wilder, sneakier, more layered album than its predecessor, the baklava to Hitmeister’s rugelach.

All the lyrics on Pick Up are short sketches, imaginary conversations she had on the toilet. The original title of Pick Up was Bathroom Desires.

Please note that there is no silence on Pick Up.

Bjork has never met The Residents.

“Randy Costanza” is a Pittsburgh rocker that has had considerable impact on Elisabeth.

The Solex live show has evolved into a thing of extraordinary dexterity, merging the idiosyncrasies of the albums with the immediacy of a live band. This past year, she played The Lowlands Festival, SxSW, Popkomm, CMJ, Noorderslag, Les Printemps de Bourges, Roskilde, toured Japan, Europe, and America twice, done two Peel Sessions, and met lots of nice people.

“She is a gloriously idiosyncratic songwriter, whose songs pursue their own internal logic, remarkable in their complete disregard for how a beat or rhythm should sound.” - Tim Owen, The Wire. Pick Up is in stores now.

Solex Vs. The Hitmeister March 10, 1998

A startling album from the previously unknown Dutch sampling/keyboard wizard Elisabeth Esselink, aka SOLEX. Esselink’s haunting vocals combined with a varied array of found sounds (some of ’em found in the second-hand record shop she runs) recall few other experimental/pop crossovers. You could try playing Cabaret Voltaire, Portishead, Cibo Matto and Suicide similtaneously on four different CD players but a) it wouldn’t sound very good and b) Wayne Coyne might think you were making fun of him. And it wouldn’t be necessary — Solex Vs. the Hitmeister is as inventive as any of the above, yet showcases a vocal presnece (and a keen sense of humor) you won’t find elsewhere.