Remixed CD cover courtesy of Melomanics

The Dutch music scene, I’m told, is close-knit and verging on incestuous, which in a musical sense can only mean you’ve got a creative hotbed of activity that’s producing high-quality bands and music at an eye-blinking rate. This includes some of the bands I’ve been writing about, such as Blokgolf and Rogerseventytwo. Well, now it’s time to meet their second-cousins removed, electro-rock trio MeloManics.

MeloManics, which means “a sickening love of music” in Dutch, began four years ago in Amsterdam, bringing together Jeroen Joosten on keyboards, Guido Schuurman on guitars and Ben Olgers on drums. Following the successful release of their first album “The Grey Light” in early 2007, the trio scooped up an Essent Award and embarked on a long tour, wowing audiences at festivals such as Lowlands and venues such as Paradiso, Melkweg, 013 and De Effenaar.

Not content with early acclaim, the MeloManics invited artists and producers to remix tracks from “The Grey Light” for a new second album, “MeloManics – Remixed“. The uber-cool line up of producers involved include: Mr Miyagi, Junk Solo, Fantastadon, Sonic Me, RogerSeventyTwo, Dr Jones, Blokgolf, 3-1 and Black Label Record’s owner Kid Goesting.

“MeloManics - Remixed” comes out on 24th April 2008 and is released on the Black Label Records. I’ve had the opportunity to listen to all of the tracks and I’m VERY EXCITED!!

To get the celebrations under way in advance, the band hijacked the Poptrash Party on 17th April to have their unofficial CD release party in the well-respected Melkweg Amsterdam. Line up included: MeloManics (live + dj set), Kid Goesting (Black Label), Pat (Poptrash), Sickboy (Poptrash), and special guests.

We’ve got three remixes from the album for download, which should give you a small flavour of the variety of styles at play here: the industrial techno version from Junk Solo, the early 80s TV show influenced version from Blokgolf, and the simply electro version from Mr Miyagi.

Get your hands on this CD as the rest of the tracks are so different, yet all so good!! Available from iTunes or Beatport.

MeloManics - DAF (Blokgolf Remix)

MeloManics - Get You (Mr Miyagi Remix)

MeloManiacs - Can’t Stop (Junk Solo Remix)