The Nightblooms were a Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

History

The band formed in 1987 in Deventer

Deventer

Deventer is a municipality and city in the Salland region of the Dutch province of Overijssel. Deventer is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, but also has a small part of its territory on the west bank. In 2005 the municipality of Bathmen Deventer is a municipality and city in...

, Holland as a four piece, featuring vocals by Esther Sprikkelman, guitar by Harry Otten, bass by Petra van Tongeren and Leon Morselt on drums.

The band's first release was the "Go Eliza" single in 1988, after which they signed to Fierce Recordings, releasing the 1990 single "Crystal Eyes", and the Butterfly Girl EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

, before releasing a debut album in 1992. They also recorded a session for John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

's BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 show in 1990, with Michael van der Woude added on guitar. They moved on to Fire Records

Fire Records (UK)

Fire Records is an independent record label in London, England. The label was founded by Clive Solomon in 1986 and is currently run by James Nicholls.-Current roster:*Giant Sand*Guided By Voices*Howe Gelb*Josephine Foster*Wooden Wand*Bobby Conn...

, who re-issued the band's debut album on their Paperhouse label; this was followed by 24 Days at Catastrophe Café in September 1993. The band split in 1996.

Sprikkelman and Otten started a new band, Safe Home.

Musical style

Although often bracketed together with the 'shoegazing' scene influenced by My Bloody Valentine, with multilayered and reverbed guitars and female vocals mixed low, this is only true of the band's second single, "Crystal Eyes"; indeed, on the band's debut album there is only one solitary guitar - no overdubs, and no effects - and vocals are startlingly upfront. Although Nightblooms songs essentially also had a noise pop

Noise pop

Noise pop is a subgenre of alternative rock developed in the mid 1980s in the UK and US, that mixes atonal noise or feedback, or both, with the melodic instrumentation and production elements more often found in pop music, making it more melodic and angst-free than noise rock.-History:Noise pop has...

 or twee

Twee

The word twee occurs in various terms:*twee pop and twee, alternative names for indie pop*Kill Twee Pop!, the first studio album by Sarandon*Twee River Redfin , a species of ray-finned fish in the Cyprinidae family...

 element, by the time of "24 Days At Catastrofe Cafe" this largely took a back seat to a 'stadium indie' sound, a mixture of Suede, Queen and Uriah Heep (with handclaps). A complete about-face occurred with final single "Love Is Gone", a one-chord acoustic-guitar strum-a-long pop song with primitive percussion: an indiepop Hotlegs

Hotlegs

Hotlegs was a short-lived English band best known for its hit single "Neanderthal Man" in 1970. The band consisted of Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, Lol Creme and – briefly – Graham Gouldman...

.

Singles

• "Go Eliza" (1988) Dingo
• "Crystal Eyes" (1990) Fierce
• Butterfly Girl EP (1992) Fierce
• "Starcatcher" double-7" (1992) Fire
• "Komt Vrienden In Het Ronde" (1993) Fierce (unreleased - test pressings only)
• "Never Dream at All" (1993) Fire
• "Hold On" (1994)
• "Love Is Gone" (1995) Fire
• Spawning Monsters EP (199?) Fire

Albums

• The Nightblooms (1992) Fierce (reissued on Paperhouse/Seed)
• Live (1992) Fierce (one-sided live album)
• 24 Days at Catastrophe Café (1993) Fire/Seed

External links

• [ Allmusic: The Nightblooms]
• Wolk, Douglas "The Nightblooms", Trouser Press
  Trouser Press
  Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow Who fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" ...
  
  
• Scaruffi, Piero "Nightblooms, The History of Rock Music