Treble
Free

From rags to riches, back and forth.

This phrase sums up the meteoric career of Treble, a Dutch trio of street girls. Their story seems like a teenage movie. It all began in 1995 when sisters Niña and Djem Van Dijk met Caroline Hoffman at a beach party, where she was performing with friends. The three quickly formed a friendship, and the Van Dijk parents asked Hoffman to become the music teacher of their two daughters. Thus, Treble was born. Lacking 'high-profile' contacts in the music world, having no real idea how to acquire them, and being three free spirits, almost hippies, the young trio started touring the Netherlands, performing their self-written and composed songs on street corners, accompanied only by a guitar and two djembes. Gradually, they managed to produce some demos and send them around, catching the attention of some farsighted producers.

Their Afro style was catchy, especially in a country like the Netherlands, where sunny rhythms and sounds are particularly appreciated. Treble recorded their first album, which achieved moderate success. Their uniqueness, beyond the tribal rhythms, lies in the language they sing in. None. In their songs, they express themselves partly in English and even less in French. For the most part, the verses are words they invented based on musicality. They argue that music doesn’t need a language: you can express and convey emotions without speaking any language. The public’s attention is substantial, and they find themselves catapulted into a world they perhaps didn’t expect. Their second album is released, sung, this time, mostly in English and again in their 'private language'.

The title of the work is 'Free'. They were also selected to represent the Netherlands at the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest in Athens, with the song «Amanbanda». The performance is energetic; they prove they can sing both on the street and in front of an audience of millions, but they don’t make it past the semifinals. The album is pleasant; their voices are well-coordinated and harmonious. The percussion is well-played, and the rhythms are captivating. Amid all the tracks, the title-track «Free» stands out, in which they tell their (certainly very romanticized) story of girls who left home early to chase their passion for music and that, even after achieving national success, could still be seen playing barefoot on street corners. Then there’s «Amanbanda», the song they performed at Eurovision, with fast and tribal rhythms, mostly sung in their non-language, and yet another «Leave Me Alone» which, with its rhythms and vocals, seems like a melancholic ballad, but the text (entirely in English) is borderline cruel, where they tell an imaginary boy «leave me alone, you’re all over me, go away, I can’t stand your presence anymore, don’t you understand that I don’t even see you?».

The work is nice, clean, their voices are fresh, well-trained, well-coordinated. An album to listen to in the car or during a moment of relaxation. But, as I said before, the story of Treble can be summed up from rags to riches, back and forth. After the success of Free and a European tour, only singles containing the same title track and «Amanbanda» were extracted from the album (including the double CD featuring all the songs that competed in the 2006 ESC edition). There were plans to release other singles: there was talk of «Lama Gaia» or «Fly», but suddenly, from one moment to the next, Treble returned to oblivion. Perhaps they've gone back to some corner of Amsterdam, with their guitar and djembes, entertaining tourists.