Some old promo and reviews;

Trespassers W’s new song-cycle is about flying down through time and space. If concepts and theories about the real world don’t make sense anymore, perhaps dreams and fantasies and conceptions of the virtual reality do. Trespassers W’s new lyrics are about flying up and flinging down, sweet dreams and nightmares, freedom and restraint, will to live and death wish, hope and despair… they are about flying down in the face of life. (amf promo)

Trespassers W have been the Netherlands best musical export during the entire of the nineties, yet exept for a small but loyal following, they remain virtually unknown in the international community, and certainly unrecognised at home. This the first record they have managed to put on CD, but a least four works on vinyl preceeding it.
The band is a rather strange outfit, blending elements of French cabaret with off-the-wall jazz and the softer elements of the seventies Canterbury sound (which included bands such as Caravan, Camel, and National Health). Their songs are built around the often whimsical lyrics of Cor Gout (but a word to the wise – look beyond the whimsy and you’ll often be surprised at the depth of his humor), with instrumental supplementation aptly provided by guitarist Lukas Simonis, keayboardist Frank van der Bos, drummer Cor Hoogerdijk, and bassist Colin McLure, as well as a bevy of brass and winds. « Come Fling down with me » certainly shows the band’s predilection for convoluted arrangements within a rock string, a neojazz work combining elements of Frank Zappa and Jacques Brel (both of whom stand out as very strong influences throughout), with Gout telling us about the lonely and desperate facades that fill a popular Saturday night spot. « The Lost Souls », a sad tale of a highly dysfunctional family, is a juxtaposition of soft psychedelia and Canterbury styles injected with occasional spurts of punkoid energy. « Toads are Trippy » tells of a dog who takes of on a psychedelic excursion courtesy of eating amphibian roadkill, replete with musical styles rampage frantically from avant-rock to country/western to disjointed triple-fusion punk.
The album’s best moments come on « Saint-Ex » and « The Circus ». The first piece, all about a child-like aviator caught up in World War II, is sung lustfully as if we are sitting around the friendly tables of a neihborhood pub. Gout comes across as a nasal Everyman, with the music providing a quirky Canterbury punk waltz. « The Circus » is clearly a tip of the hat to Federico Fellini (they mentioned him by name). however, in this vague waltz, Brel is drunkenly careening his way, not to the ring, but rather in front of the circle of seats set up to view this small travelling European circus, amusing the children while annoying their parents, tripping over the beleagured concessionaires.
This is a record and a band worth seeking out. Hopefully more people will be able to find out about them, and give them the recognition they’re due). (5 stars) (alternative press usa, m. mahan)

Although Wayside Music usually specializies in absurdly overcomplicated music – and although I find that a key virtue of theirs – occasionally they also serve those who perform modest oddities from the sidelines of a field you’d need a compass, time, and luck to find yourself. Trespassers W started out with real connections to rock, and no connections to wayside, but by 1996 their latest, FLY UP IN THE FACE OF LIFE, was ready for the catalogue: they’d settled on a jazz/cabaret base from which items like electric guitar were welcome, very much so, but used neither to rock nor to roll but to lunge spastically, or to curl up and make weird noises till the neighbors rush in concernedly. But the overall ambiance is expansively friendly and if the songs aren’t exactly tuneful in the Brill Building Da-Doo-Ron-Ron sense, they so send plenty of notes wandering happily among the more gravely, unmanicured paths of the familiar ol’ chromatic scale. So the sound is distinctive and intriguing. But the true magic comes from the lyrics, which seem written in blithe unawareness of what songs are and aren’t supposed to be about, or what syllable-to-word ratios are acceptable. The fist track « Kite in Weimar » (which sounds like a lost piece of Carla Bley’s avant-jazz opera ESCALATOR OVER THE HILL), sets the tone by earnestly presenting, and explaining, a complex analogy between 1922 and 1992 German politics. Other songs are often celebrations: of the daring impudence of the 17th century female painter Artemesia Gentileschi; of the photographer who filmed the Wright Brothers’ historic first flight; of a 60-ffot-high statue of an angel in Northeast England; of a band member’s late uncle; of how rock and roll will never die, although « The Day When The Stones Raided Scheveningen » is the only example of that genre I’ve seen reading like a Sunday feature article. Other songs tell stories or fables, or pray to Harry Houdini for generational guidance, or do carefully shaded portraits of domestic situations that most lyricists would summarize in 2 quick judgmental verses and a yowl. « Come Fling down with me » is even a boy/girl song, and a quite good one; my point is not that Trespassers W lack normal passions, but that they supplement with mental warehouses full of abstruse passions, presented with such unabashed giddy love as to be a gateway into an alien world, one which gets clearer and more colorful TV reception of our world than we do. I would want to live there, but a 55-minute visit is not to be sneered at, and if we observe thoughtfully enough while we’re there, maybe we can bring back some well-chosen souvenirs.
(33 REBELLIONS PER MINUTE, webcatalogue)

This is like seen a foreign film by a director whose name you’ve heard but whose work you’ve never seen. It’s a weird jumping-in point. I feel like I haven’t done my homework! Quirky rock band with horn section. A Nordic Los Lobos! Art rock in spots. « The Lost Souls » is very epic and grand; very Nick Cave. « Saint-Ex », with its drunken oompath swing and cascading melodic bit is the first thing to take hold. « John Daniels Pressed The Bulb » is a cute little revisionist lyric saying the most noteworthy thing to happen during the Wright Bros’ first flight was that someone – John Daniels – got it on film. Hey! « Toads Are Trippy »! Nordic country and western! Achtung un liebe ji-ha! « The Day The Stones Raided Schevenigen » is a dull Bo Diddley riff with lyrics that go on about the fateful day in August 1964 when the Rolling Stones « played the stately Kurzaal in Scheveningen, » with « excitement bigger than a Cadillac. »
« Artemesia Gentileschi » details the life and work of a 16th century « paintress. » The son has a great chorus: « why should women paint, » later becoming « why should women kill? » « Raven’s End » is made from the same psychic matter used to propel the Sugarcubes to greatness: mildly whacked out rhythms and quirky horn break and unpredictable synth leads. « Oom Jan’s Hemelvaart » has a long horn vamp at the beginning that’s very pleasant. « Angelic Face of North East England Could Be Fatal Distraction » is a short novelty song with dramatic chord changes and spoken text. FLY UP gets better (and easier) with repeted listenings. (AUTOweb, by IAN C. STEWART)