My name is Anouk Kool (.noukko..) and I’ve been creating popvideos since 2009. My song-videos as a whole is a work-in-progress: I started out making songs solely leaning on my piano skills and my profound love of popsongs (and videos!) of all times (including alternative and rock); very intuitive. I still have an intuitive way of approaching new songs, but with every new song, I’m trying to improve my skills. You can say it’s an artistically coming of age-project.
After producing the latest song ‘The soup’ I followed a mix course. So this is the first song I mixed with actual mix-skills. I still have a long way to go, but for now it is what it is. I’m looking for perfection, but I believe there is a chance you can find it by embracing imperfection. And ofcourse it’s also a practical matter, so if one day my ship comes in, I’ll have the lot re-recorded/arranged/mixed, and so on.
As for my song-video approach: sometimes at first there is the video and I make a song that goes with it. Sometimes at first there is a song and I make a video that goes with it. Sometimes both exist at the same time. I write, record, play, perform, edit and mix everything myself, in my studio.
I love do it all, website and artwork included. ‘Cause I’ve got a very clear idea about how I want it and I’m very keen on puzzling. I love to see it all come together.
My first children’s book ‘Nelly and the magpie gang’ (Clavis), for ages 9-12, is available now!
The songs
‘The soup’ is yet another idea about a little thing called ‘our existence’. It haunted me for a few weeks, while I was working on the lyrics. Our own mortality is one thing, but eternity is another. Thank god we’re human, so we let daily business forget this beyond vertigo-experience.
In the case of ‘Away we go’ I knew I was going on a trip and I could imagine how nice it would be if I could make a video of it. But first I had to make a song, ofcourse. Even before we went, I felt a little nostalgic about it. So the song and video have a little nostalgia-touch, which was totally in place, because that’s exactly how I feel now, looking back at this trip.
‘See some more’ is a video I made while I was in a moving train. I was listening to a song and all of a sudden the music and the train poles flashing by came (and stayed!) together. Something that doesn’t happen very often, and I’m an expert on this (music and train poles). So I started filming and a few weeks later I started to make a beat ‘on the poles’.
‘Just there’ also derived from the video. In this case, also the lyrics are based on the video. I’m always surprised with ‘whatever happens’ has to offer me. In the song I’m wondering why (in popular culture) this is never enough; things have to be processed and processed and processed by the best of every discipline until they are considered ready. Ofcourse I understand how this works and often I love ‘the best of the best’-productions. But I think those approaches can exist next to each other more equally. Without the ‘just-there-products’ being framed like that. For example: I don’t believe in singer-songwriter as a genre. And it shouldn’t be a ‘rule’ that in every serious production the-best-of-the-best is actually required. So this is basically what the song is about: sometimes it’s right in front of you and it cán be enough. All you have to do is notice it.
I play the piano, but I also love the synth. I work in ProTools. As opposed to the digital, I blend in all sorts of analogue sounds. Sounds I really like: a seventies-telephone (dialling a ‘0’, so the sound lasts the longest), a burp, a rattling match box, a tap on a knife, a pan with water in it, toys, and so on. Or other kinds of sound, like (old) footsteps from movies; I’ve been watching a lot of movies in search for the most clean, long and beautiful footsteps (‘Walking’). But also just the regular analogue percussion instruments, my old piano, drums, guitar, an old organ, Solina, that kind of stuff. I write the songs whilst I’m producing. If possible, I’ll have my string-arrangements played by real strings (which I prefer).
