Almost ten year ago, the infamous club De Waakzaamheid closed its doors. Although there were plans for a revival of the illustrious dance hall, these plans were never executed.
Five years ago, #JK released the album INDUSTRIAL CITY IN THE CLOUDS on which the song "Waakzaamheid, de~" gave presence.
It's time to rediscover the track...
… or stream the track from your favourite streaming-service
2013 REVIEW OF INDUSTRIAL CITY IN THE CLOUDS
Sympathy for some devil.
"Her skin bursts, and she bleeds," growls Jean Koning on the astonishing Industrial City In The Clouds. It's funny, it's impressive, and we should take him at his word. Never a shrinking violet on record — and perhaps tired of being called a slip of a guy — Koning bawls and shouts and moans his way through a set of blues-inspired tunes that are strange, skewed and solitary. "Shouting to a man about to drown," he declaims elsewhere, and there's nothing to say but "Insane!" On his first three albums, the heralded Man Enough To Be A Woman (2010), the more problematic Bathtub Full Of Murder (2012) and the Man Enough To Be A Woman spinoff, Wake Up In L.A. (2011), Koning rocked and roiled his way through human traumas and triumphs. While working traditional thematic turf — the body and soul of the suffering human being — he ripped to shreds staid truths about life. Such paradoxes generate power. Koning reckons with more than that, too: He has ambitions to remake rock & roll and its myths in his own guise. In the process he stretches his musical references. His covers of such classics as Tom Waits' "Poor Edward" (on Miniatures 1: “PAIN”) and Prince's "When Doves Cry" show an abiding interest in taking on the past, more particularly its male legends. In the same spirit in which Liz Phair answered the Rolling Stones on Exile in Guyville — but to a very different end — Koning dive bombs the canon on Industrial City In The Clouds. He may get his sense of play from Captain Beefheart and his sense of drama from Patti Smith, but it's the blues and blues-schooled greats whom Koning transfigures — John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Jagger-Richards, Hendrix, Zeppelin. Nevertheless, listeners will probably find Industrial City In The Clouds a relief after the beating Koning gave with the occasionally glorious Wake Up In L.A.. This time, Koning produces for a result that combines Man Enough To Be a Woman's ecstasy with Wake Up In L.A.’s agony. Koning plays the piano on every cut — along with singing and playing some guitar — adding still more dimension. The other musicians — bassist Tomas, percussionists James, plus a huge orchestra on the tracks — help fuel the fire. Industrial City In The Clouds, full of portents, searching for grace, pulls its themes straight from the mythological terrain of the blues. Koning forces personae to fit this music; his imagery is highly symbolic — not personal but essentially private. On the first track, over a chugging bass riff, he sings: "I don’t know my face no more because all my cells are now in panic." On a hissing, rubbery blast called "It’s Murder In The Fitting Room," a raw-voiced Koning warns: "Knifes are pulling out / the rush of the game they play / I feel his sweet fingers / touching, touching, touching her skin." On "A River, A Bird, A Man," Koning feelingly sings: "And high above the river / the bird is screaming down / to a man who’s in the water / a man about to drown." And then he gives a few toy shrieks: it's so over the top that you're not sure his vision of a male savior on a horse isn't a put-on. So what's this middle-aged, white, bluesdrenched man doing? In attempting to create a sexual landscape as charged as the Midnight Rambler's, Koning envisions a teeming underworld where he is victim, aggressor and accomplice, song by song. The sexual menace, the left-behind man, allegories about a son, a daughter, a "dear city" — all these are put in the service of a primal vision on Industrial City In The Clouds: Koning's bitter struggles with his demons and his wicked, wanton sympathy for the devil.