bands

Arrows Made of Desire

As the son of a Dutch food-supplier father and a Chinese writer mother, Joewi (pronounced "Joo-ee" for those English speakers) began writing songs on piano and guitar at the ripe old age of 15 while growing up in the small Dutch town of Zeeland. Upon graduating high school he packed up and caught the first flight to Beijing, China to study Mandarin and film directing at the Beijing Film Academy. In his free time, Joewi was also tooling around in his bedroom with an 8- track recorder, a vintage drum machine, some guitars, and one less than stellar microphone. The results of his extracurricular tinkering eventually became the debut full length, Songs That Sell Fish, an indie-rock to the core lo-fi DIY rock genre fusion album if there ever was one. Which is brings us back to progress. The world and its intentions is the tone poem of our modern times. As an artist with his finger firmly placed on the pulse of his generation, Joewi has also progressed, some would say dramatically, in the three years since the release of his debut. The bedroom has been replaced by Sweet Factory studios, gone is the drum machine and in its stead is the living human drum machine Xiao Dou (Red Hand Jazz Band), while bassist and former Jimmyhat alum Rutger Brauer rounds out the full fledged band as a three piece ensemble. Throw in wunderkind engineer Yuli Chen, legendary BBC DJ Steve Barker (On the Wire) lending a hand in production, one stellar microphone, the experience that comes with three years of on and off and on touring, and a brand new batch of Joewi originals and you have Songs That Sell Out. As a unified yet diverse set of material, Songs That Sell Out builds upon the foundation of its predecessor. The signature shimmering indie pop expected of Arrows is more refined here, as heard on the tearing "For-Itself", the horn and hook laden "Missing Out", and the stomping pop of "Dependency!". Mixing things up is the lightly country fried lonesome road of "Race", and the reeling red light district panache of "She Seems to Imply That I Need A Mirror", as the damaged experimental indie-folk of "The Revelation" finds Joewi delving deeper into darker subject matter supported by music of beautiful complexity. Songs That Sell Out is a worthy addition to the Arrows Made of Desire canon as it finds Joewi Verhoeven and company progressing fearlessly into exciting unknown sonic territory with draw dropping results. Like a fine wine, Arrows Made of Desire is aging nicely and on target. [back]