Normally Invisible

Normally Invisible was founded in 1992 by Nico, Olaf and Thiemo, students of the Institute for Sonology at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, Holland. They had discovered a mutual interest in electronic dance music and started producing tracks together in the studios of the institute. In 1994, Thiemo was the first Dutch conservatory student to graduate on a live dance music performance, held at the Sonic Acts Festival in Paradiso, Amsterdam. 1994 also saw the release of Normally Invisible's first cd, called "Always Ultra With Wings", on Amsterdam based label Staalplaat. Tracks on this cd ranged from pure ambient to downtempo trance, and more dancefloor oriented material was released a short while later on the "Psychotronics" vinyl 12". Normally Invisible started touring clubs and parties in holland. In 1996, Thiemo left the band, and not much later Marcus Graf joined the Normally Invisible-forces. Marcus helped shifting Normally Invisible’s focus to more breakbeat-oriented music. Live performances grew more exciting when Marcus and Olaf, both having a history in grunge/metal bands, got out their guitars on stage and started producing an eclectic mix of ultra-fresh breakbeats and sometimes evocative, often downright brutal guitarwork. A demo with new Normally Invisible-material miraculously landed in the office of the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble (the dutch brass- and woodwind collective) in 1998, and impressed with its uncompromising freshness, the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble immediately asked Normally Invisible to join their ‘het bal’-project. A bizarre one-night-stand between the 25-men brass- and woodwind ensemble and several dance acts (Speedy J, Eddy de Clerq and Normally Invisible among others) in the world-famous Concertgebouw in Amsterdam was the result. Normally Invisible was very proud to be the very first (and probably last) act to play guitar-powered drum’n’bass in this building saturated with music history... This wild performance was of course noticed by Dj Eddy de Clerq, famous for being the first dj to bring house music to Holland. He promptly invited Normally Invisible to do a series of gigs for his ‘Testlab’-nights, where new ground-breaking acts were tested on a willing audience. These Testlab gigs were also the first shows with their new lead singer Desaya. Her unique sound and style turned out to be exactly what had been the missing link in their productions and live performances, taking them to new atmospheric heights. One of these Testlab-shows, in Doornroosje in Nijmegen, was attended by Dutch pop-magazine Oor reporter Anette Plinck, who wrote an enthusiastic report for the magazine, telling club programmers and record labels to take notice of this new, very non-dutch sounding act. She also prompted the organisation of ‘Noorderslag 2000’, a huge pop-festival in Groningen, to put Normally Invisible on their list, which they did. That gig might have been a breakthrough for the band, if not most of the press were assembled in the next hall, where Junkie XL was playing dat-tapes. Another demo turned up at Peter Flamman’s movie post production studio in Amsterdam. Peter played some of its tracks while looking for music for director Ruud van Hemert’s feature-film ‘Ik Ook Van Jou’. Both Ruud van Hemert and producer Frank Bak were swept away by Normally Invisible’s uncompromising musical purity and undeniable 21st century feel, and commissioned Normally Invisible to write the entire movie score. Normally Invisible, who had done music for a couple of commercials and some theater pieces, eagerly accepted this new challenge and disappeared into their studios for three months to write and produce the score. Although the movie received mixed press reactions, the dramatic score was very well-received. 2001 was the year of normally invisible's MTV debut, albeit a different one than the band had originally envisioned. Normally Invisible was commissioned to do audio design for a series of MTV-commercials for car manufacturer Mini, which aired in june and july. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.