An album that takes the listener on a captivating and mesmerising musical journey.
Self-Released more info at: https://vivienneaerts.nl/
Vivienne Aerts (vocals, keyboards, electronics, field recordings); Hermine Deurloo (harmonica); Susanne Alt (saxophone); Adinda Meertins (bass)
Recorded on the waters of The Netherlands, summer 2025
Paul McCartney famously recorded his 1978 Wings album London Town aboard a boat, and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour owns a houseboat recording studio. But these set-ups seem simple and straightforward when compared with the challenge Dutch-born singer and keyboardist Vivienne Aerts set herself.
During the Covid pandemic of the early 2020s, Aerts purchased a 1951 mahogany sailboat, and in the summer of 2025, she and her husband set sail on a round trip from her Dutch hometown of Leiden to Amsterdam, via Lake Braassem, in South Holland. Inspired by her watery environment, Aerts composed eleven songs, with a total running time of 44 minutes. As she and her husband sailed through the Netherlands, they picked up several guest musicians along the way, who play on some of the tracks.
Before talking about the music, a word about the album’s sumptuous packaging, which really does highlight the benefit physical media has over digital. Aerts’ last album came with a free bar of chocolate; this latest one has plenty of goodies, although none of them edible. The fold-out card digipak opens up to reveal extensive liner notes from Aerts, who describes the background to the project; a CD disc with a drone shot of the boat on the label, and a pouch stuffed with a small notebook (the Captain’s Log) which includes a long list of the equipment and recording gear they took on board (I’m amazed there was any space for Aerts and her husband, let alone the guest musicians, one of whom played a large double bass).
There are also a couple of postcards, stickers featuring birds, the boat, a windmill and Aerts sitting cross-legged with a keyboard, and a large fold-out map, which traces the route they took and includes stories about the journey. A lot of care of attention has gone into this packaging, and, it must be said, the music too.
Aerts has lived in the US for some time now, where she works as a musician, therapist and educator. She has played with an impressive cast of jazz musicians that includes Lee Konitz, Dave Liebman, Chris Potter, Peter Erskine, John Patitucci and Terri Lyne Carrington. A lot of the music is improvised, and some of it had to be put together piece-by-piece, because of technical issues or environmental challenges – sometimes a large vessel would sail close by on the canal, causing a pause in the recording.
Nevertheless, thanks to today’s editing tools and software, the music sounds seamless and coherent. None of the guest musicians heard the music before climbing aboard, and so improvised over it. All were more than up to the task. The music is interspersed with field recordings made by Aerts: birds, church bells, reeds rustling in the breeze, lock gates opening and closing, and even the creaking sound of the boat.
A lot of the music is haunting, atmospheric and dream-like, and is a mixture of vocals, instrumentals, improvised electronic soundscapes, plus two short musical interludes. Jazz musician Hermine Deurloo plays chromatic harmonica on several tunes, including the wistful opening number, ‘Nothing Needs The World,’ and the reflective ‘When I’m Gone,’ adding colour and texture to Aert’s yearning vocals and sparse piano chords. On the first track, Adinda Meertins’, sparse, melodic bass lines add to the sense of calm – it’s glorious music.
German-born saxophonist Susanne Alt (who lives in Amsterdam) plays alto sax on the peaceful, tranquil ‘Watch Its Show,’ a number you can imagine listening to on a pair of headphones whilst relaxing on an inflatable in the middle of a lake. On the closing number ‘Outside Inside Out,’ Alt closes the tune with an intense solo of cascading reverberating and echoing alto sax.
The title track, subtitled ‘Improv 1’, is an eerie electronic soundscape, with ghost-like vocals, and with this listener, evoking the image of a boat slowly sailing through thick mist. The second improvised soundscape, ‘Water Lock’ has a similar sound and feel, with more wordless vocals, along with the sound of birds and a scraping lock gate. The two short pieces (both around a minute in length) are ‘Gathered Here,’ a vocal ballad that has the potential to be a much longer piece, and ‘Closer,’ another ballad, this time with multi-tracked vocals. Songs like ‘Where Is The Sun,’ and ‘Touching The Light’ highlight what a fine voice Aerts has. An album that takes the listener on a captivating and mesmerising musical journey.
