Solex “The Laughing Stock of Indie Rock”

Originally published in Bitch magazine, Spring 2005

Solex is the alter ego of Dutch record store owner, Elizabeth Esselink, who pieces together loops and samples from the crappy, unsellable CDs in her store’s discount bins, to layer under her own clever, nearly English-proficient vocals. After three brilliant solo albums for Matador, Solex has gained a new label, a live band and a male vocalist. These additional musicians appear on every track on Laughing Stock, but not in the way one might expect. They comprise just one of the many fragments of source material Esselink cuts and pastes to make songs. The musicians’ presence gives the album a messier and livelier sound than its predecessors.