Solex: reviews, bio, albums

Solex

Musician

Foradventurous indie listeners, sample-based music fans, matador devotees, and crate-diggers.
3 Reviews 1 Definitions 1 Charts

The Profile

Solex is the stage name of Dutch musician Elisabeth Esselink, known for sample-built indie pop released on Matador Records. Debuting in 1998, she constructs songs from fragments sourced from her used-record trove and performs them with a minimalist live setup.

Dutch musician; solo project of Elisabeth Esselink; debuted in 1998 on Matador; sample-based composition from second-hand records; airy, distant vocal style; live shows often feature a drummer; formerly ran a used record shop in Amsterdam.

Three DeBaser reviews celebrate Solex’s sample-built pop collages, airy vocals, and Matador-era highlights. Praise centers on the debut, Pick Up, and Low Kick and Hard Bop, noting her Dutch roots, one-woman craft, and inventive live sets. Overall tone is admiring and upbeat.

Notable Quotes

❝ An unusual combination of beats, samples, voice, and creativity.

❝ A must-have record for its beauty and historical importance even before it makes history, and a clear example of how music hasn't said it all yet: there is no limit to creativity, as long as you have it.

❝ Pick Up nonchalantly mixes syncopated and deliberately offbeat rhythms with Andean flutes (?) recorded here and there, proto-punk experiments with a sort of klezmer-calypso, country-blues guitars with '30s brass sections, creating a sort of patchanka fused with the most skewed electronics.