Ruud Houweling

You can now stream and share Night Falls On The Town on Spotify.
It’s also (or will be soon) on just about any other digital service. Happy streaming or downloading…

The song Night Falls On The Town will be out on August 5, in memory of Jessica Phiri. Some of you may remember, there was a tragic accident on the beach here last year. Jessica Phiri from Zambia, fell into a rip current and lost her life, just 20 years old. She had been a guest with a German family, while working there for a year, through an international exchange program. It happened on a day trip to Zandvoort, at the end of Jessica’s stay. She wanted to see a sea. Zambia only has rivers.

She was missing for three days at the peak of summer and tourism just kept going as if nothing had happened. Albeit inevitable in a sense, it felt wrong to me. One of those late evenings I walked on the boulevard when all the tourists had gone home. I was surrounded by silent witnesses of tourism. Empty chairs, an abandoned fairground, the lifeboat had returned to the boathouse, but Jessica was still missing. I wrote the song Night Falls On The Town about it.  When the Phiri family and host family visited Zandvoort in June, to look for answers, I had the chance to present it to them. I hoped it might show them the events had had impact on the community here.

The song is available now on Bandcamp and precedes the release of my new album, expected in november.

September 2nd and 3rd I will be playing 6 30 minute shows at Wilhelmina Huiskamer Festival. On Fridaynight I’ll be in Blok F and on Saturdaynight in Blok A. Plenty of new songs. Hope to see you there. Tickets

Last year there was a tragic accident on the beach near my house. I wrote a song about it. By chance I had the opportunity to meet the wonderful family of Jessica Phiri (Zambia) and the Munsch family (Germany) who were with her on that terrible day, August 5th 2015. I gave them the song, we all listened to it on the beach. You can read more about in on Facebook.  The song is called Night Falls On The Town and will be on my new album.

A week ago I returned home from mixing my new album in Cotati, California. I worked, once again, with Oz Fritz, engineer extraordinaire, who had also recorded most of the music earlier this year in Holland. We spent 8 intense and long days in Studio A of Prairie Sun Recording, where we had been before in 2008 (to work on Cloudmachine’s Back On Land). I love the huge collection of vintage analogue gear there, aswell as the Waits-room in studio C, responsible for the characteristic reverb on two Grammy-winning Tom Waits records: Bone Machine and Mule Variations. The latter of which had drawn me to Prairie Sun and in particular to Oz back in 2008. Much to my surprise I discovered an old boiler with my name on it, that was fitted to the Waits-room aeons ago. Half way through the sessions percussionist Rob Wijtman joined us. Oz did his magic and we had a great time. I think we left Sonoma County with a great record. I hope you can hear it soon. Stay tuned…