De Kloe plays organically homegrown dance beats based on rudimentary musical themes and barebones structures.

These serve as the starting blocks for musical improvisations and playful experimentation. The band consists of Midas Heuvinck (bass), Leon Jespers (electronica), Matthieu Larose (keys), and Elian Van den Eynde (guitar). After releasing demo tapes and live recordings, they now present their debut EP, ‘De Kloe Hits’.

I enjoyed listening to ‘De Kloe Hits’. Do you see this as your “real debut,” in a way, after some demo and live recordings?

Elian Van den Eynde: It depends on how you look at it. ‘De Kloe Hits’ is our debut EP under the wings of Rotkat Records. However, we released a few projects ourselves before this EP, with ‘Pirate Bay’ being the first one. ‘Pirate Bay’ might be considered our true debut.

I don’t know much about this band. I saw you live once at De Nor in Antwerp, and I heard a radio session, which was kind of a rehearsal, if I’m correct. So tell me a bit about this band: when did you start De Kloe? Was it in 2020? How did you all meet? Was De Kloe initially a trio and then later a quartet, or am I mistaken?

Leon Jespers: We met around the last year of high school, in 2019, while partying and hanging out. Matthieu Larose and I were in school together. I made hip-hop beats, and it was common for people to come over to hang out and make music. The line between hanging out and making music was a bit blurry, so many people ended up featuring on multiple tracks and recordings without initially intending to. In this process, Matthieu, Elian, and I became very close. Initially, we wanted to start a magazine called De Kloe, but we ended up forming a band.

Elian: For our first concert in 2019, at Leon’s parents’ house, which was to be renovated, I asked my nephew, Loran Van Eenaeme, to join us on bass, even though he hadn’t heard our music before the actual concert. Later, Sueño De Smet joined us for a while, playing percussion on chairs, long before Jeroen Stevens popularized and perfected this technique.

Leon: Loran is still featured on the EP but decided to leave De Kloe a few months ago. Now Midas Heuvinck has joined us on bass. We’ve known him for a long time; he was already featured on ‘Pirate Bay’, for example!

If I say De Kloe sounds like city guys in their early to mid-20s who grew up with video games, now listen to krautrock and post-punk, maybe got some jazz education, how far from the truth am I?

Elian: We all grew up in Antwerp; Leon and I recently moved to Brussels. I played a lot of Kerbal Space Program and Cities: Skylines, while Matthieu still plays a lot of Rocket League. The others didn’t play as much.

Leon: We do listen to some krautrock, post-punk, and jazz; these genres definitely influence how we make music. But all sorts of music inspire us. Matthieu and I didn’t have any formal music education, while Elian and Loran took some guitar lessons. Midas is currently pursuing his master’s degree in jazz guitar at the Conservatory of Antwerp.

Daniel Miller from Mute said that when he saw Can live in the UK for the first time, there was no link between their live shows and the record they had just released (which he liked). Faust said that because there were no musicians in the band, they spent more time editing their recorded material than actually playing. If Kraftwerk were asked what the difference was between Kraftwerk and other krautrock bands, they answered: we had songs. What would De Kloe be closer to: Can, Faust, or Kraftwerk?

Leon: On the spectrum you present, I think we stand somewhere between Can and Faust. ‘De Kloe Hits’ was almost entirely live-recorded with some edits. But the songs change almost every time we play them.

Elian: Our approach changes from project to project. ‘Pirate Bay’ was mostly edited and would be closer to Faust. We do play some parts of ‘Pirate Bay’ as live songs; for example, ‘Get It On’ is a more recent version of a part of ‘Pirate Bay’.

Leon: We are definitely not Kraftwerk.

‘De Kloe Hits’ is an EP. Why? I mean, why “just” an EP and not a full album? Because De Kloe plays one-hour concerts, so you could have made a full album, right?

Leon: These four songs were the ones with the most structure or identity at the time. But our live set usually consists of ten or twelve songs. Since we recorded ‘De Kloe Hits’, more songs are taking shape. I remember when we played at De Nor in August 2022, for example, all the songs were really free. Not that this is a requirement for us; a song doesn’t need to be fully defined before recording it, and even the songs on the EP are still evolving.

Elian: We decided to rehearse and record ‘De Kloe Hits’ in one week. So we thought it was better to focus on a few songs that we liked rather than recording everything. This is also the first time we worked with Rotkat Records, and we wanted to start with a smaller project before recording a full-length LP. ‘De Kloe Hits’ is the first time we haven’t done everything ourselves. We’re very grateful to Sergey Steenackers and Karel De Backer for mixing and mastering, and also to Jasper Moonen, Benny Bang, and Wim Van Acoleyen for publishing the EP.

Leon: Currently, we’re planning to record an LP with De Kloe, but the timing is still quite vague.

‘De Kloe Hits’ is available on digital platforms but also as a tape. Does it matter to you that there’s still a “physical object”?

Elian: Yes, it’s nice to have something physical.

Leon: I agree! I collect music on LP, tape, and CD. I enjoy listening to music in physical form because I can get overwhelmed by the vast choices online. While it’s amazing for discovering new music you wouldn’t come across otherwise, I often find myself listening to the same Pitbull album repeatedly. So having a physical collection provides a nice limitation.

Joeri Bruyninckx

De Kloe Facebook / Instagram
Rotkat Records Facebook / Instagram / Bandcamp