Tramhaus arrives with a first album and takes control of Sonic City

Curator of the Sonic City festival which will take place in Kortrijk from November 8 to 10, Tramhaus has only just released his first album. Explanations.

It has become a habit. At the very least a trend. Whether they are English, Irish or Dutch, fashionable groups no longer rush to record and release an album. Young musicians today do not put not the needle before the vinyl. They take their time. That of doing things well. Tramhaus, which was already playing in August 2021 in a cellar in Ghent and for which it would be difficult to count the number of concerts already given in our flat country, has only released its first LP, The First Exiton September 20. This is partly due to the pandemic. « When the venues reopened after confinement, we were in great demand from concert organizers, explains Jim Luijten, the drummer of the Rotterdam post-punk band, from Italy, despite a terrible internet connection. We didn't stop touring. We had neither time to write an album nor time to record it. It wasn't until February 2023, if I remember correctly, that we said to ourselves that we had to plan all of this. We had already booked tours. So, it was still complicated to find the right time to tackle it. »

There was a time not so long ago when the album was a necessity, an almost obligatory passage towards the dates and the podiums. The paradigm seems to have been reversed. Back-to-school rock sensations, the Dubliners Gurriers, the Londoners Deadletter and the weirdos Fat Dog released their first album in September even though they have been traveling the world for several years already. “ They followed the same path as us. They appeared at the same time and they got this label of new cool banda band that people wanted to see on stage. The live performance suddenly took on another dimension. Listeners wanted, needed to see the groups in real life. They were looking for this kind of projects and energy too, perhaps. The question of the disk, ultimately, was secondary. Even if we were asked it often. »

For the Tramhaus tornado, the session filmed at Roodkaapje, a Do It Yourself culture venue located a stone's throw from Rotterdam station, was clearly decisive. The Dutch have filmed the video in one day. With friends and no money, spending everything they had on renting cameras and lights. “ That’s when the ball started rolling for us. It was a fairly high quality capture and she showed people what they wanted to see. The kind of concerts they wanted to attend. Beyond the songs, the visual aspect played a role, I believe. I think nowadays a good single or a great video can be so important and decisive than an album. Gurriers, Deadletter and Fat Dog could hardly tell you otherwise. We released one or the other song, people started talking about us and three or four years later we all released our first album, almost at the same time. »

In the meantime, they opted for 45 rpm. « They corresponded well to the time we had and our way of operating. We needed songs to stay on stage for 45 minutes anyway. This allowed us to have recorded material without having to stop filming. » The format also meets the consumption habits of most people today, this era of the single celebrated by YouTubesocial networks and streaming platforms. “ It's true. The most important thing has almost become finding yourself on a playlist with a real sounding board. »

To put in a box The First Exitthe people of Rotterdam managed on their own. « We work with a DIY label and for the release, it's half and half. But the registration was at our expense. We put money aside from our concerts to finance the record and we also benefited from some subsidies. All this also partly explains the time it took. We wanted to do things right. Go for the sound and energy that we release in concert. »

Unlike others, Tramhaus has decided to only opt for new releases. “ We had already released our old songs in one format or another. We took it as a challenge. And we were confident that we could produce songs as good as the ones we already had. We finally wanted to write new things. We were sure it was going to work. We didn't want to rely on things that had worked in the past. It made things more exciting and less boring. »

Carte blanche

Si Lust for Youth, Mabe Fratti, Shannon & The Clams, Cola, Holiday Ghosts, Ulrika Spacek, Mock Media et Sereias se produisent in Kortrijk, from November 8 to 10they owe it, at least in part, to Tramhaus: the Dutch are this year's curators of the Sonic City festival. “ We immediately accepted. We were super excited, please Jim Luijten. We were asked to send a list of artists we would like to see there and fifteen minutes later, we had already released 50 names. The organizers really checked all the groups we had mentioned. Until the Deftones. But they also came to us with artists who had otherwise been offered to them. »

A fashion phenomenon, the curator festival is somewhere the event extension, the sonic and physical incarnation of the recommendations provided 30 or 40 years ago by the artists in their interviews. We've all gone looking for records in stores or at the media library after reading interviews in which our favorite bands spoke enthusiastically about what they were listening to. “ I, who am younger, I was going to see this on YouTube. It was an opportunity to discover what they liked but also sometimes their friends and local groups with whom they used to play. » In terms of genres, the Rottardois have opened up the framework. “ We listen so much other things than post-punk. We wanted to seize this opportunity to show our different sides and not just offer guitar music. »