With much water gone under the bridge, Esther Sprikkelman and Harry Otten
have known each other since childhood - Esther was a pubsescent punk,
screaming slogans against queen and country whilst Harry was the slightly
older guru-with-guitar figure. Time was these people could be relied on to
have everything turned up full and damn the neighbours. These days the
neighbours are untroubled: the noises now made by Esther & Harry are an
altogether quieter thing. Yes, Safe Home is most definitely quiet, yet
listening to the music made by Safe Home is most definitely a disquieting
experience…
In 2001 Safe Home released a series of five 7" singles on their own Angels
In Space micro-label, and, when these records (now sought-after and
increasingly hard to find) were sold out, issued the tracks, together with
new recordings, as the album "You Can't Undo What's Already Undid", released
by Sunday Records of Illinois early in 2002. Described at the time as
"'Paradise Lost' as performed by Alice", the album was "a quiet little
melancholia for electro-burble, cyclical guitars, harmonium and the distant
intimacy of a faraway-so-close voice": this was not summertime music.
Avoided by even the non-establishment music establishment at home in
Holland, "You Can't Undo What's Already Undid" was well-received elsewhere,
and work began on a second full-length set, eventually completed as "The
Wide Wide World And All We Know". Once again, and this time perhaps even
more so, the sound of Safe Home is an uncomfortable mixture of melancholy
and longing: Harry Otten's glacial arrangements of understated guitars weave
and loop as Esther Sprikkelman's always impressionistic lyrics leave plenty
of room for the listener to conjure up his or her own personal claustrophobia.
The water passing under the Safe Home bridge seems to be oddly treacherous -
not violent and heaving, but with an insidious undercurrent hidden in the
blackness; crossing it offers a dry passage only to those who dare not look
down.
Hi guys,love your songs, were you guys anything to do with the nightblooms?cos we love them too! I'm gonna dig out my copy of album and check it out(god,how nerdy does that sound) Let us know if you ever come to Scotland to play Love Glider
Hi & thanks for your support! "The Wide Wide World And All We Know" is such a beautiful work, Post Fairport... Post Drake... Post Pastel... Post it! I must confess that I really like the bits when the Home becomes Unsafe with hidden sounds, tiny noises & glitches. Do you really own a mellotron? Fantastic. Say hello to Steve, the vinyl guru.
heel erg mooie muziek! Interessante arrangementen en een overal mysterieuse atmosfeer; een beetje droomerig en 'other-worldly'. En de texten vind ik erg evocatief.
Heel veel succes toegewenst,
Hello beautiful ones!
So grand to find you out here in space...what a cozy place this is turning out to be!
Many blessings in your journeys and ventures old friends~ Mimi
nice to meet you, guys. any friend of fairport convention's a friend of mine. i hope this finds you well out there somewhere. love and light from tam lin music.
very nice music! Welcome to Myspace, and thanks very much for adding our band. We really like it here, it's done a lot for us.
Please keep in touch, we like your songs very much.
