Born : Nijmegen, Netherlands
Freiband is the latest project by Frans de Waard, also founding member of Kapotte Muziek, Beequeen, Goem aswell as solo projects such as Shifts and Quest. Frans de Waard has been producing music since the mid 80s, firstly on cassettes in the 80s and then on LPs and CD's afterthat.
Freiband was inspired by the tape-scratching of Asmus Tietchens on his CD 'Daseinsverfehlung', but here applied to an entirely digital context. Using recordings that were made for the new Beequeen, a record that has a lot of guitars, drums, organs, Frans de Waard started to rework them by scratching the harddisc. The result was warm, glitchy popmusic, in which the original instruments are barely recognizable, but sounding entirely electronical. Tongue in cheek, De Waard calls this popmusic, music made out of popping sounds, rather then popular music, but entirely inspired by De Waard's love for popmusic. Since the inception of this new monikker, Freiband has played concerts in The Netherlands, Japan and a surprise gig at Mutek, Canada, 2001. The first CD 'Microbes' was released late 2001 by Ritornell, a side label of Mille Plateaux. In september 2002 the second CD 'Homeward' was released on Bottrop Boy and this is all with reworked popmusic from the late 70s and early 80s.