Announced as a surprise album on Friday 29 October, In Your Hands is Lewsberg’s third album to be self-released by the Rotterdam band. Their eponymous debut album (2018) and second album In This House (2020) established Lewsberg as experts of the art-rock mode; disruptive, noisy and jagged instrumentals cut with melancholic humour delivered in a nonchalant tone.

Since, Lewsberg have developed their approach and decisively shifted away from the complementary but tediously repetitive comparisons to The Velvet Underground, Television and the like. In Your Hands is introspective and spacious; it provides room for delicate violin solos and a stripped back drum kit to just a tom and a tambourine to enhance the lyrical poetry and demonstrate the vast capacity of the band. Lewsberg cleverly continue to shock us through an anti-shock.

Lewsberg have been on the circuit for five years. Arie van Vliet (vocals, guitar, violin), Michiel Klien (guitar, keyboard, drum loops) and Shalita Dietrich (vocals, bass guitar, percussion) have remained together with changing members on drums. Their home of Rotterdam stands as a huge source of creative inspiration. Most potently, the band is named after the late Robert Loesberg, a poet and writer also from Rotterdam. Loesberg’s work is characteristically nihilistic and disillusioned, revealing to lead singer van Vliet that writing about life doesn’t always have to be beautiful; it can be ugly and a little rough around the edges. Taking Loesberg’s attitude forward in his own writing, van Vliet astutely captures discreet and seemingly unimportant moments of the everyday that might otherwise be overlooked. Unfortunately for the band though, Rotterdam no longer holds its ugly duckling outsider status and has become increasingly gentrified. As experienced by Dietrich, her art school peers from the Hague who previously sneered at her locale have proceeded to infiltrate and beautify. Lewsberg sustains the old Rotterdam through their coal-tinted glasses. They approach music as a means to make art rather than as a means to please, entertain or amuse an audience. Their authentic DIY approach explains why they aren’t tied to a record label and why they’ve opted out of the social media rat race that dominates so many of us in the twenty-first century. 

Ahead of the release of In Your Hands, we had the pleasure of speaking to van Vliet and Dietrich; relaxed, assured and expressive folks with a clear vision on what they do as writers, artists and musicians. It just so happened that our conversation was the first time they’d publicly spoken about their surprise new music. With a UK tour kicking off in Bristol on 12 November and ending at Moth Club in London on 23 November, this Autumn/Winter period is certainly an exciting one for Lewsberg.

Thanks for taking the time to speak to us today. Who is Lewsberg? And, how did Lewsberg become a band?

Arie: Michiel (the guitar player) and I knew each other from the music scene. He was more into experimental music and I used to be more into pop music. We talked to each other about this and decided to start a band together to see how it would work. We asked Shalita to join us on bass and now we’ve been playing for around five years. The only thing that has changed over time is our drummer. We’re going to be a four-piece again as of the UK tour when our new drummer, Marrit Meinema, will be joining us. Michiel has a habit to start a new project after writing an album so it’s really exceptional we’ve been going for so long.

I understand that you folks originate from Rotterdam - a place I’m rather unfamiliar with. What’s the music and arts scene like there?

Shalita: There are a lot of musicians and artists. It’s a small scene and everyone knows each other. There’s not a lot of diversity. So, when we travel to the UK or Germany it’s always nice: like, "wow, not everyone here is white."

Arie: Over the last couple of years, it’s like people have discovered Rotterdam. For me, it was more interesting when people didn’t know about it.

Shalita: I used to go to art school in the Hague and everyone there was like: !Rotterdam is a shitty town." And now, everyone from that art school lives here and thinks it’s amazing. 

It’s interesting, and this is from my limited knowledge of the region, it’s as if Amsterdam used to be the creative hub but people moved to Rotterdam because it was ‘cool’ and now it’s becoming gentrified. Would you say that’s fair? And, is it still a good base?

Arie: Yes absolutely. I’ve come to the point where I’m starting to doubt if it’s still a good base. It has always been a big source of inspiration for me but in the last couple of years it’s become a bit boring because of gentrification. Rotterdam used to be rough and ugly with edges but now every edge has to be covered with flowers.

I read that you’re named after the cult author Robert Loesberg who was also from Rotterdam. His work is famously nihilistic and disillusioned. Would you say that his influence serves to tell us anything about your music?

Arie: Not a lot of people even in The Netherlands know about Loesberg. When I read his book about ten years ago, it was the first time that I realised that you don’t have to write beautiful stuff- you can write ugly stuff as well. It was a totally different way of looking at language. For me, that has been a big source of inspiration for everything I write or make; an inspiration for life - you can find joy in the boring things. So, that’s why we called the band Lewsberg.

His work sounds like something I’d like to read.

Arie: Well, that’s another part of that band name. His work hasn’t been translated to English but he always thought it might happen one day. He said he would write his name like ‘Lewsberg’, how we write it, but that never happened so it’s a sort of ode to the English name that he never used. 

Shalita: His daughter actually came to a gig and she was very happy about it. 

That’s amazing. How did it feel?

Shalita: It was weird!

Arie: It was weird because she didn’t really have a happy childhood. But in the last couple of years she started to understand how and why her father was the way he was. At that point she discovered that we existed and we met her. I still have email conversations with her.

You’re frequently likened to bands such as The Velvet Underground and Television due to your jagged musical style and lyrical focus on the everyday. I wonder, how do you feel about the comparison?

Shalita: We’ve heard it a thousand times so it’s a little bit annoying but also understandable.

Arie: I understand it as well. But, at the same time, I think the everyday life of The Velvet Underground is so far from our everyday lives. We have totally different starting points. Sometimes it makes writing new stuff harder because it’s in the back of my head. But, I know it shouldn’t make a difference. There’s just so much music history.

Your last two albums Lewsberg and In This House are characterised largely by disjointed melodies, noise rock guitar moments, instrumentals and elongated intros and outros that all serve to pleasantly interrupt the flow. You do it exceptionally well. Can you talk us through how and why you chose to disrupt and disorientate?

Shalita: I think it’s to not please people.

Arie: A lot of music is made to please people and that gets a little bit boring; just something to consume. We don’t really like music as entertainment. 

Shalita: It also feels good to play live; very long, repetitive music. Sometimes you can see that the audience gets bored but I think that we actually like that as well. There are also a lot of people who like it and hold attention.

Arie: We’ve now come to a point where people expect us to be disruptive. So, we’ve gone to the next level where to be disruptive we have to be non-disruptive. I really like this space. We have to think really hard about if we want to play these out of tune, six minute long songs because people are expecting it. We still don’t want to amuse people so we have to do something new - play more normal to shock.

It’s funny - at first people were shocked and now to shock them further you almost have to un-shock them. Your new album In Your Hands definitely does this and is significantly more stripped back and replaces those harsh guitar chugs for melodic violin solos and gentle chords. We’ve already covered it in parts, but what inspired you to adopt a new style?

Arie: It’s always been a part of Lewsberg but it’s never really been seen; it’s another side to Lewsberg. It felt natural. We played a lot of songs off the old album live before we recorded them and then we had to try to capture that energy. Of course, that couldn’t happen this time so it feels more intimate.

Shalita: It’s been a few heavy years for us so I think it’s good to have a bit of mellow.

In Your Hands really feels like a process of cooling off to facilitate introspection and greater exploration of what you folks can do. Why did you choose to release it as a surprise album?

Arie: We finished recording it about a month ago. Then we had to mix it and have it mastered. I think it was ready by the first week of October and we wanted to get it out as soon as possible.

Shalita: It’s been a little bit scary because we’ve been busy working on it but haven’t talked to anyone about it yet. 

Have you guys spoken to any press about the album?

Both together: No not yet! This is the first time.

What a treat. Something that has remained the same across all three of your albums is the poetic lyrical content and the nonchalant vocal delivery. You also include beautiful moments of spoken word. Can you explain a little about your approach to song-writing? 

Arie: I only discovered that I wasn’t actually singing when I started Lewsberg. I always thought that I was singing but people said that I was doing more of a spoken word thing. It feels natural. I’m only now starting to understand the difference between what I’m doing and what real singers are doing.

Where does inspiration for your lyrics come from?

Shalita: Arie likes to observe. 

Arie: I try to put things I observe into song. But I don’t like to be too explicit about anything; I don’t want to judge people or talk too much about emotions. I think when you’re too explicit, you can miss the deeper layer.

I spotted that your albums have been self-released. How was the process and why did you opt for this method?

Arie: I think nowadays the only thing a label can do for you - unless it’s a really big label - is take some work off your hands so that you don’t have to get in touch with pressing plants or the press yourself. We thought we could do all of that ourselves.

Shalita: It’s nice to have everything in your own hands. 

Arie: You can make your own decisions. I know stories of bands who had to change the chorus of a song when writing a new album because the label didn’t like it. That’s something that I would never want to do.

Shalita: I don’t think that we could have made In Your Hands if we were signed to a label because everything that people know and like about Lewsberg: we don’t do that on this album. We have more choices. 

Ahead of our interview, I went to check out your social media platforms to find that you’re not actually on any social media platforms. This is super unconventional for the twenty-first century but I hugely respect it. Why have you chosen to stay offline?

Shalita: For peace of mind.

Arie: We don’t want to be bothered with it. It feels really natural to not be on social media. I’d like to ask the question ‘why’ to bands who are on social media… probably to stay in touch with fans but at the same time it feels a bit forced. I wouldn’t like thinking about what to share; sharing music is enough. 

Article by Meg Sweeney originally written for Bad Luck Magazine.