Arrows Made of Desire equals half-Dutch, half-Chinese Joewi Verhoeven, a one-man, multi-idea indie kid. All instruments for this impressive debut were recorded on a simple 8-track, adding to the DYI, unpredictable nature of the music, with subtle production complementing stron songwriting. Even Verhoeven's electric drums are tolerably unobtrusive, with the possible exception of 'The Logic of Smokin' Cigarettes' and a definate case of 'Consider it Done'. Accessible, melodic, experimental, diverse; check, check, check, check, yet the real selling point is that it's not obvious to which records Verhoeven has been listening...and that certainly can't be said about many other acts in Beijing. Paul Kendall
That's Beijing, July 2006
With a name taken from a line in Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile", Arrows Made of Desire is 19-year-old Dutch expat Joewi Verhoeven's one-boy band. The singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist has released his first full-length album, which was recorded entirely on his Boss eight-track recorder - this may only have been bettered by DJ Shadow, who recorded his first album on a Tascam four-track cassette recorder. Verhoeven's lo-fi sound - stock drum machine sounds, low-end effects processors on the guitag and vocals - would normally induce goosebumps crawling all up and down the neck but one gets over it when the crappy sounding drum breaks roll into hook after pop hook, as on the pening track "Truism". What is most impressive about tracks such as "King of Lonedom" and "Consider it Done" is that the tempo accentuates the melodies perfectly - pop alchemy in its natural state and sweet as can be. Verhoeven cites Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Polvo as inspiration (the latter's trademark fuzz-jangled guitar chops can be heard on "The Logic of Smokin' Cigarettes"). We would add K Records-era Beck (the boyish vocals and sadonic lyrics) and Ween (the drum machine, lo-fi production calues and genre fun-poking lke on "The Wall") to the list. Not bad for a 19-year-old kid. Leon Lee
Onlinerock, May 2008
One-man band, Joewi Verhoeven has produced a startlingly energetic, if sometimes unbalanced, debut as Arrows Made of Desire. Songs That Sell Fish, splinters into a hundred directions as this Netherlands-raised, current Beijing Film Academy undergrad fuses Sonic Youth-inspired cerebral guitar work, spindly, reverbed vocals and schizo percussion into home-recorded rock opuses.
Verhoeven’s delightfully off-kilter English is immediately disarming, swarming with self assured bombast while spouting stream-of-consciousness, neo-poetic narratives about druggy nights out and busted romances. “The Logic of Smokin’ Cigarettes” finds him playfully adapting cool-dude, Amerindie speak in a skewering of high school melodrama that morphs into a kaleidoscopic funk-rock mind trip Fishbone could be proud to play. Arrows Made of Desire hits its highest potential on a handful of cathartic head-bangers, most noticeably on the mosh pit pop-rocker, “Sober Monk” and acidic slow-burn opener, “Truism” with its Bob Mould-style guitar arabesques and intertwining vocal harmonies. Closing track, “Souvenirs From Another Planet” provides a nicely crafted counterpoint to all the hard-rock fuzz.
On the less stable second side of Songs That Sell Fish, Verhoeven proves himself bold enough to make the right kind of mistakes: erring on the side of experimentation and tricky doses of forward-think on the clunky jazz-centric spazz-out “The Walk” and the softly sweeping eccentricities of easy-listening-cum-avant-indie smackdown, “It’s the Sweet Taste of Rejection.”
With Songs That Sell Fish Verhoeven proves himself to be a self-reliant voice to watch.
Favorite Track: “Truism”
Christopher j Ewing
Joewi Verhoeven wears his influences lightly for someone just the other side of teendom. Born of Dutch and Chinese parents, brought up in Holland and re-locating to Beijing for Mandarin study and film school, he has managed to find the time to soak up the post-grunge tunefulness of Soundgarden whilst being at home with the pre-blues minstrelsy of Mississippi John Hurt, entering guitar world via a Nirvana portal like so many other early teens he's ended up more between Arthur Lee and Roddy Frame rather than totally sold on the easier world of post-rock noodling abstraction. All to say that Joewi (say "joowi") is more about tunes than most rock musicians these days.
The band called Arrows Made of Desire (a name lifted from a line in Jimi Hendrix's awesome "Voodoo Chile" where he misquotes William Blake's "Jerusalem") has gone through a few incarnations, but the creative pivot has always been Joewi Verhoeven. His debut set for Tag Team Records, "Songs That Sell Fish", was not much more than a collection of loose demos, pre-built fuzzy-fi, near zero production values, almost field recordings, but with enough raw promise to indicate better was to come. Joewi linked with bassist Rutger Brauer (formerly of Jimmyhat) and Xiao Dou, on loan from Beijing's hippest jazz outfit the Red Hand Jazz Band, for the sessions that resulted in Songs That Sell Out; starting in late Spring 2008 and running on and off through the following six months. Recorded at Yuli Chen's Sweet Factory in Beijing, an Aladdin's cave of analogue gear rescued from NYC studios, the song structures on the album were captured fast around the live rhythm section before a more measured building of the feeling for each track. The set moves through instant pop classics such as the brass-punched snarl of "Missing Out" or "Dependency" one of those tunes you've known all your life, a sexy semi-samba in "Race", the pastoral plaint of "Bear it Calmly", the angst-ridden dissonance of "Revelation" and the jazzed-out "Heroes Hit Bottom"; perhaps its no accident that by the time the last track "Denouement" arrives with an unmistakeably contemporary stamp it can be taken as indication of what's to come.
All the songs here are written and arranged by Joewi Verhoeven, engineered by Yuli Chen - pre and post his involvement in the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony; Yuli also played the various keyboards that may be heard tinkling intros and outros. Vintage and also legendary BBC DJ Steve Barker (On the Wire) was brought in for fatherly attention of all the young people involved in this project plus random co-production assistance for Joewi throughout the process and the tracks were mastered into a shiny things by Mr Fred Kervorkian of Avatar Studios NYC, whose mind and fingers have previously manipulated everyone from Sonic Youth to Pharoah Sanders. Enjoy but resist whistling along!
Purchase Songs That Sell Fish directly from Tag Team Records and get a bunch of free stuff along with your order!!! Songs That Sell Fish also currently available at fine record shops throughout The People's Republic of China.
Hi, we're Stackers from Tokyo, Japan, originated in New York City, USA in 2003. Check out this video of one of our shows in Japan. We have been compared to such bands as Rancid and Hi-Standard
and we have a full length album available worldwide at Interpunk.com!
Pending the new release "Melotonine" (release date coming soon), i decided to offer you a part of my best recent works in a free EP, "Cupboard Replacement", downloadable in all numeric formats with special graphic art works by Flint on Music AutOmatiK's Website :
We can stay in contact on facebook now... Thanks for your support !
Hey ,my friend.Hope you have a wonderful weekend.Welcome to our space and listen to our songs when it is convenient to you.Looking forward to seeing you.
So nice to have you as a friend in our network here at myspace. K-Jell new cd “refreshing power” was released in China on the 23 of March, it will be out in Europe later this spring. Maybe you will be so kind to take a few minutes and listen to the new songs and tell us what you think. Music vice it’s a mix of bands like The Jam, The Clash, Rancid, Green Day and Still Little Fingers, or at least in that direction. K-Jell will tour China in April and probably visit Germany during the summer. Rest of the world later….
Hey man! Thanks, and same to you - looking forward to hearing Songs that Sell Out :)
Oh, the gig was full of technical difficulties - we tried a new approach on a song, but nothing ventured nothing gained I guess. The yugong yishan one was much much better. Oh well :)
I am off for HK and Europe for a few weeks but back in end of March, let me know if you play out then!
Oh 'signed' or 'signed', there is a firm in HK that is helping us with getting the EP done (legal stuff like barcodes, IRSC numbers or whatever they are called) but nothing much otherwise.
But it is fun :) and they'll help us get gigs in the southern region which is nice since we already know the BJ quite well.
Sorry I missed your gig, I heard it was great from some Swedish friends of Wangzi who were there (long story, random meetings).
Take care in the mean time, and no worries about MAO - we are doing a very quick set since LCD's are long and majestic. :D
Also: would love to hook you up with a copy of the CD when it is done - hopefully within a month. More to come there.
Hey man! Sweet stuff :) Thanks for writing back. I also hear that your stellar album will be out very very shortly right? Is there any chance that I can buy a copy from you before April?
I was also bummed out since the only day I was in town and you played was the same day that JW play :( :( :( Damn!
Finally, I am working a bit with the global battle of the bands 2009 and the manager is a HK lady who runs the indie scene there - so if you come by just let me know and I'll find you a gig or two in no time.
Miss you, no-one to talk philosophy with when you are not here :|
