SMK146 | De Stichting – Breng voort Uw licht, Uw Donder

22 Apr SMK146 | De Stichting – Breng voort Uw licht, Uw Donder

In an interview given at Green Man in 2015 Mark E Smith attributed the fall of Christian belief in the UK to the wetness of the new hymns. He had a point. But he needn’t have worried if he had heard this set of observances, cut deep from the Bollenstreek, where the word of The Lord keeps the snack bars shut on Sundays.

Older heads may feel the music has some affinities with Popol Vuh’s film soundtracks or maybe Alain Pierre’s magnificent Jan Zonder Vrees score. There is just “something” in the tail off in ‘Jesus die langs het water liep’, or in the wistful plod of ‘Psalm 65’ that toys with your fancy in this regard. It certainly reminds this old cove of that brief moment in the early 1980s where synths were employed to mould society’s future sounds; from answerphones to readings from the Good Book.

There’s a simplicity to everything; we feel that De Stichting isn’t fishing for irony. ‘De heer is waarlijk opgestaan’ is a straightfaced and sensible rendering of Wesley’s famous hymn. And ‘Ave Verum Corpus’ is a ghostly, Dingeresque take on Mozart’s everlasting melody. If only they played De Stichting in Katwijk’s garden centres instead of Maria Carey.