Kraak and Smaak 'Boogie Angst' album

In just over a year, Holland’s electronic funk phenomenon Kraak & Smaak have established themselves as a major new talent. From their energy-charged live shows that have been winning over audiences across Europe to their first US tour, and from the acclaimed funk-fuelled debut single “Money In The Bag” to the album, 'Boogie Angst', the Kraakers continue to carve out a unique musical niche somewhere between low fi and funked up Balearic breaks, with a knowing nod to the house loving floors.

As the long hot summer of festival antics gets underway, Kraak & Smaak are casting their musical net even wider with plans for a new album next year, and an ever expanding live schedule.

With high profile fans such as Radio 1’s Pete Tong, Annie Nightingale, Zane Lowe, and more, Kraak & Smaak ‘s slow burning Leiden-based musical madness is now exploding in a highly-charged fashion via the new single “Keep Me Home”, and the release of the special edition “Boogie Angst” album with a Bonus CD of stunning remixes.

‘Boogie Angst’ draws on a wide range of of influences, kicking off with the street strut of the funked-up twangs of ‘Money in the Bag’, which first brought them attention. ‘One of these Days,’ pours U-Gene’s Stax-era style vocals over looped guitars, spiralling trumpets and brass stabs into the classic finger clickin’ chilled funk and spoken-word dubby groove of “Keep Me Searching”. ‘Jolie Banane’s seductive snaking hip funk groove unfolds in hypnotic dancefloor style before ‘Keep Me Home’s balmy summer house takes the dancefloor by storm, bounding through dusty woodwind and glimmering strings. 'Danse Macabre’ ushers in its downbeat soundscape with hauntingly soft vocals, vintage keys and horns with ‘5 to 4’, pushing the envelope with epic Blade Runner-like stylings with stark mutated echoes and twisting Middle Eastern pipes. “Say Yeah”’s a funky drummer minimal stomp with horns whilst “No Sun In The Sky”s guitar tweaked head nodding funk twists with swathes of keys and drums.
‘Mambo Solitario’ curls elegant strings around shuffling samba with “Maputo Express” continuing the downbeat latin funk theme. And closing off CD1 is “Hello Big Mama”, a rolling hip hop jam awash with wah wah guitar strut for more funky drummer style jaunts across the floor. Side 2 side everyone in the house...

For this special edition of the album, the band have pulled together all their favourite remixes and added some bonus material.“When the album was first released we were completely unknown. Now we have more of a profile having been out playing the festival circuit to amazing response. And our tunes have also had full releases in Europe, the US as well as the UK. We’re doing a UK tour in October so it seemed a good time to re-issue the album and we think the remixes definitely add an extra dimension to it.” enthuses K&S’ Mark Kneppers.

The remix CD features some heavyweight names with all the tracks in full length and mastered for use by CD DJ’s or home listeners. The legendary 4 Hero do a broken breakbeat take on Keep Me Home adding lush pads and a stuttering rhythm, German housemeister Sharam Jey drops a sleazy electro house take on Money in the Bag while Balearic Soul keep the house business moving on One of These days – a remix that has moved them into the house premier league with remixes for Defected and Positiva now on the way. To the left of centre Mark Rae and Rhys Adams give a dub balearica re-rub to One of These Days while elsewhere Swedish breakbeat king Infekto goes up against Fingerlickin’s Soul of Man in the “Who can make this track funkiest” international title fight. Crazy P add warm chords and beautiful rhythms in their take on Money in the Bag while Tom Belton, fresh from remixing Coldcut and Jamiroquai adds his magic to No Sun in the Sky.

In one year, the Netherland’s funk phenomenon, Kraak & Smaak, have won massive audiences across the continent with their energy-charged live shows, debut album “Boogie Angst”, DJ sets and initial singles. Rocking key festivals, such as Pinkpop in NL, the boys have also turned out their first US tour and are now signed to the Quango label for the US.

K&S split their time between live gigs, studio work and DJ'ing, preferring where possible to spread the word through their live show. After the initial success of the ‘Boogie Angst” album , K & S have moved on to stage two of their master plan by gathering together a family of live musicians and putting the band on the road. The band consists of some of the best known and hottest Dutch musicians and vocalists in the business: Ro Krom (drums, percussion and vocals); U-Gene (keys and vocals); Vocalist Rose (a dutch soul diva) and Marc Baronner (bass guitar).

The success of Kraak & Smaak in Holland is an interesting turn up for Mark who is already a member of another hugely successful dutch pop act “Yeah I'm also in a band called Wipneus & Pim” says Mark “ It's completely different to Kraak & Smaak but it's really popular live with Dutch people and in fact we were recently offered our own TV show. The only problem is the diary and deciding which hat I'm going to put on at the weekend, Kraak & Smaak or Wipneus & Pim”.

Most recently the band are working on music for several films, inbetween runing the best independent record shop in their home town of Leiden. Both Mark & Wim are rabid record collectors and between them are convinced they have the biggest vinyl collection in the Netherlands “In my sets I tend to play lots of funky breakbeat, music for the girls and something that will get them up on the floor,” smiles Mark.

The ever so slightly illegal sounding band of Dutchmen, K&S are, Mark Kneppers, Oscar De Jong & Wim Plug. Their controversial name is actually an old proverb in Dutch, meaning this and that. The first K&S track “Money in the Bag” netted them a deal with Jalapeno Records, as well as landing the K&S crew with a mix on Radio 1, courtesy of early supporter Annie Nightingale. They repaid the courtesy with another DJ mix for Annie in 05 which was voted Mix Of The Year and re-run in Radio 1's “Best of the Year” round up.

Not that Annie was the only supporter in the UK - nearly every specialist on UK National Radio 1 from Pete Tong to Zane Lowe and Annie Mac to the Blue Room have all featured Kraak & Smaak tracks in their shows. IDJ magazine made Boogie Angst (the kraakers debut album) one of their Albums of the Year, devoting a spread to the super strength Dutch funk crew.

The release of the album has already brought big changes to the lives of the band. “We’ve worked our asses off touring this album” says Wim “ It’s the only way a new band can break it big without major investment from a big label but we’re happy doing it this way conquering the world territory by territory”.

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Kraak and Smaak - Boogie Angst