Because the police put an abrupt end to their farewell concert this summer,the new wave pioneers of Aroma di Amore are making a new attempt, in the AB,and hopefully without the police. Our creativity has not dried up. Only theAroma di Amore concept will end on December 14. Point.’
Christopher VerbiestDecember 13, 202203:00
Half past one in the morning, Monday 27 June last summer in the Marie-HendrikaPark in Ostend. The public is stunned. And the band on stage too. Because thepolice just turned off the power. After three quarters of a concert, Aroma diAmore is silenced. What makes it even more painful: it was the very lastconcert of Aroma di Amore. Fred Angst: “Because the other groups had run out,we started too late. We thought we could complete our promised hour.” Not so.
An anticlimax that the trio did not want to see as the official end. Sotomorrow there will be a second chance in the Ancienne Belgique. Really thevery last concert of the new wave group around Elvis Peeters, Fred Angst andLo Meulen. In 1982, Aroma di Amore was in the same place in the final of theRock Rally. That selection caused a click in the heads of the group members.Peeters: “Thanks to the Rock Rally, we thought: apparently we mean somethingafter all.” Fear: “After that, we stepped it up a notch.”
Just say: a few teeth. For the next five years, their mix of whimsicalguitars, primitive electronics and surprising arabesques was among the bestthat Belgian music had to offer. But after the stunning Cold fire from 1987they threw in the towel. Angst: “We wrote a lot of songs, but no recordcompany was interested. We fell between two chairs. We didn’t belong to thegoth, but neither did we belong to the bands that were popular at the time,such as The Scabs and De Kreuners.”
Convulsions
A short reunion tour followed sporadically, but new material had to wait until2012. Four years later, the last album followed, Sentence. So Aroma di Amorehas stopped and started again many times. Why should we believe the three now?Angst: “In 2016 we pulled out all the stops for Sentence. We could haverepeated that, but we don’t want to make the same record twice.” Peeters: “Westill get along just fine.” Vermeulen: “It is not impossible that we will makemusic together one day, but not as Aroma di Amore. Anxiety: “Our creativityhas not dried up. Only the Aroma di Amore concept will end on December 14.Point.”
The three themselves indicate that the last convulsions of the band feed onnostalgia. Except for two songs, tomorrow (Wednesday) they will only playsongs from the eighties. Peeters: “But things sometimes go strange. Lastweekend at the Hnita Jazz Club there was a man in his fifties with hisfourteen-year-old daughter. He got to know us through her.”
Aroma di Amore at a concert in 2012.Image Alex Vanhee
The three still find their songs from the 80s relevant. Peeters, now betterknown as a man of letters ( The countless , We ) then as a singer:“’Everything becomes sand’ deals with global warming and the desertificationthat accompanies it. This was in the news forty years ago. It’s sad howtopical that number is.” Angst: “We have always been keenly aware of socialdevelopments. Although we are never sloganesque, we are radical.” Peeters: “Wetried to put poetry and subtlety in our lyrics.”
Vermeulen: “Don’t forget that they also contain humour.” So much so, in fact,that the Rock Rally report warned against “falling into the student trap.” Thecause: the two wonderful, Dadaist songs (‘Gorilla dans de samba’ and ‘IsabelleAvondrood’) on the debut single. Anxiety: “A few records later, a reviewerwrote of Ear : a pity that they have lost their silliness.” Peeters,blowing: “We have never been silly. ‘Gorilla dans de samba’ can be performedby Captain Winokio. My children’s books about Mr. Paper put me inkindergartens. If the children want to hear a song, I always choose ‘Gorilladans de samba’. Everyone excited!”
Nice sales trick
Anxiety: “A song like ‘And then there was nothing left’ (new wave classic byDe Brassers, ed.) we don’t have. We have never played doom music.” Vermeulen:“We were wrongly pigeonholed.” Singing in Dutch was always self-evident.Because you don’t ask a Dutch-speaking author why he writes in his nativelanguage. Peeters thinks that his lyrics would be a lot less nuanced if hewrote in English. The Dutch did not prevent Aroma di Amore from seeing a songappear on a Brazilian compilation or selling out a room of 2,000 spectators inValencia on its own.
The farewell concert coincides with the release of Black box , a vinyl boxwith six records from the 1980s. Although the not so wealthy Aroma di Amorefan will be shocked. The box costs just under 135 euros. The six records (twoLPs, one albumette and three 12-inch) are also for sale separately, for about114 euros. The 7-inch ‘Gorilla dans de samba’ is exclusively in the box. Fear:“Especially to get people to buy the box.”
A clever sales trick that you don’t associate with Aroma di Amore. Peeters:“Oh, is it pricey?” Vermeulen: “The record company has determined that. Wealso think it is expensive.” Anxiety: “Look, I bought Gorky’s box earlier thisyear for 75 euros. It originally cost 150. So people who Black box considerit too expensive: wait another six months and then you can purchase it at areduced price.”
Aroma di Amore will play in the AB Box on Wednesday evening. ** Blackbox is out on Onderstroom Records.**