What took place previously: Hooverphonic entered the Belgian ether in 1996 with the album ‘A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular’. Single ‘2 Wicky’ was immediately picked up by director Bernardo Bertolucci for his film ‘Stealing Beauty’. That was the start of an international success story to which Hooverphonic added a chapter with every new release. When the band celebrated its ten year anniversary in 2006, with the best-of ‘Singles 96-06’, the CD sales-counter goes over the million. A year after the release of their seventh long-player ‘The President of the LSD Golf Club’ singer Geike Arnaert decides to focus on a solo career. Enter Noémie Wolfs. She has no musical background, aside from a band established for a special occasion in high-school. She's never had singing lessons, singing is just a part of her. Alex Callier and Raymond Geerts immediately invited her for a vocal test, gave the result some time to sink in, saw her again at the Musicians Day in AB and decided that she's the one. Shortly after that the band started recording the new album ‘The Night Before’. The intent was simple: back to Hooverphonic's roots. The sources of inspiration are still just as grandiose: with its rich orchestrations, the new album echoes with the best of Burt Bacharach, Ennio Morricone and John Barry, and yet still sounds unmistakably Hooverphonic.
The support act for both Hooverphonic concerts will be Leuven's Marble Sounds. Pieter Van Dessel's one-man project quickly grew into a fivesome with Gianni Marzo (Isbells), Christophe Vandewoude (Soon), Johan De Coster (Soon) and Frederik Bastiaensen (ex-General Mindy). Their debut ‘Nice Is Good’ saw the light of day in early 2010 and it accrued quite some superlatives. Their recent concert at the Feeërieën last summer was also one of the highlights. 2011 now promisingly announces itself with a M.I.A. nomination for their fantastic ‘Sky High’ video and an invitation to international showcase-festival Eurosonic in Groningen.
‘A splendid album’ (De Morgen *****)
‘They make a pretty impressive debut with Nice Is Good. Nice! And also good, of course!" (Focus Knack)
‘Like a collection of tightrope walkers, they adroitly avoid every cliché’. (HUMO ***)
‘Fine, no, what are we saying, an extremely fine album’. (Rif Raf)
I-Tunes: The Night Before - Single - Hooverphonic
I-Tunes: The Night Before - Album - Hooverphonic