The Trypoul Sessions consist of 5 songs recorded in Trypoul Studios in Neerkant. The concept for these sessions was to play everything live with a full band in an acoustic setting, while trying to make all songs vary as much as possible in both sound and visuals. With a limited budget, we had to get a bunch of friends and family to help to make this idea a reality. Next to regular band members Ferd, Jasper and I, Axley got the help of Stephan van Erp (my uncle) on percussion for 3 songs, while Martijn Claessens (vocals/guitar in RobinHood) did the backing vocals and keys on 4 songs.
Embrace:
'Embrace' was a new song at the time of the recording, and it was supposed to be the only song for which the audio and film recording would be done separately, as the idea was to have the film recorded by a (noisy) drone in the studio. However, due to the thickness of the walls in Trypoul Studios, the drone couldn't get a GPS signal, which made it too difficult to have the drone fly steadily. So, we ended up filming from the balcony and the stairs in the studio, which basically created the same atmosphere as intended with the drone.
Well:
The idea for 'Well' was quite simple; film the performance in one shot, as Teun walks through the room as the song continues. This is my favorite song in the Trypoul Sessions, as it nicely shows all the instrumental layers and really builds up to be quite big in the end, despite maintaining a calm atmosphere.
Love That You Hate Me:
'Love That You Hate Me' is a nice up-tempo song that Jasper, Ferd and I love to play live. The performance is based on an old demo I made years ago, but the fact that it really comes alive once its played live made this song a lot of fun to record for the Trypoul Sessions. I really love how the combination of Ferd's Cajon and Stephan's congas bring a great rhythmic element to this dynamic, melodic song. The video and idea of performing it in a circle were inspired by this performance of 'Feel It Still' by Portugal. The man. I wanted as many shots from different angles, so I could basically play with the different shots on the beats of the song.
Redemption:
For 'Redemption', my former football teammate Ralf Leenders played piano, while Maxje de Wit (violin) and Dierick Aartsen (cello) of the Sweelinck Orchestra played their parts for the string section. This song was recorded two weeks after the other 4, so we had more time to rehearse and try different tempos. Recording music with a string section was a great experience on its own, we're very happy with this result and are very excited by the idea of doing these kind of string versions more often.
Bulletproof:
Next to 4 original Axley songs, we wanted to record one cover. I feel that when you cover any song, you should make a version that will be enjoyable as a new song on itself, without needing to make a comparison to the original. The idea of covering La Roux's 'Bulletproof' has been in my mind for a long time, and with a lot of different instrumentation, chord changes and vocal shifts, I believe we really made this version our own.
Jessie van Erp (my sister) and Patrick van Erp (my father) filmed all the performances, using a bunch of cameras and smartphones from our own pockets. Afterwards, I mixed the music in Logic Pro X and and edited the videos in Final Cut Pro. On March 18th, we released The Trypoul Sessions to all streaming services. We can't wait to hear what you think of The Trypoul Sessions! It took a lot of time finishing this project, and we had a lot of fun making it. These songs have been a more softer side of our music, and we're currently working on new music that has a whole different sound than these live, acoustic performances. If you follow us on our socials, we'll let you know when we have new music to show you! For now, we hope you enjoy The Trypoul Sessions!
Teun