Nits

Many view the Nits as a group that would stand alongside astute outfits such as XTC and Prefab Sprout among the planet’s most esteemed acts today, had location not worked against them. Their exceptional creative persistence sets them apart, given that few acts sustain reinvention across four decades and beyond twenty albums. Hailing from Holland, the musicians restricted their engagement with the wider international sphere—apart from infrequent North American jaunts—to the use of English lyrics. They displayed no inclination to reshape their singular art-pop approach for mass consumption. Successive releases were crafted to bear minimal resemblance to what preceded them, creating a perpetual challenge for promotional campaigns. This approach secured steady but limited acclaim throughout continental Europe, where listeners valued the group’s staunch independence and preference for close-quarters performances, yet it left many listeners in Britain and America unaware of inventive and readily approachable work.

Looking back, the decision made by the musicians who assembled the band in Amsterdam during 1974 and chose the name the Nits remains curious; they apparently saw an insect-like connection to the Beatles in the title. The original configuration featured Henk Hofstede on vocals, guitar, and keyboards, Rob Kloet on drums, Michiel Peters on guitar and vocals, and Alex Roelofs on bass. This quartet issued the independently released single “Yes or No” in 1975 and the self-titled debut album in 1978.

Across that record and the three that followed—Tent in 1979, New Flat in 1980, and Work in 1981—the Nits claimed a portion of the new-wave territory inhabited by groups such as XTC and Talking Heads. Hofstede later acknowledged those two acts, together with the literary style of Leonard Cohen, as major early influences. Although Hofstede’s melodies had occasionally hinted at Beatles traits, those elements surfaced more clearly on the 1983 album Omsk. Earlier resistance to convention had often produced deliberate eccentricity, yet the record began to reveal genuine substance and individuality, drawing equally from European chanson and musical-theater traditions and from British and American pop. The arrival of keyboardist Robert Jan Stips coincided with this shift. Previously a producer for the band, the former Golden Earring and Supersister member supplied a fresh orchestral quality through his extensive collection of custom samples.

Omsk and the six-month-later mini-album Kilo also confirmed Hofstede as a notably accomplished vocalist. Listeners immediately noted the John Lennon-like quality in his delivery, yet a hint of Elvis Costello—absent any persistent edge of disdain—appeared in his handling of ballads such as “Dapper Street” and “Mask.” Onstage he projected both magnetism and warmth.

In subsequent years the Nits pursued a consistent policy of avoiding any repetition of their own musical paths. Adieu, Sweet Bahnhof, issued in 1984 under the guidance of Stars on 45 producer Jaap Eggermont, represented their nearest approach to mainstream acceptance up to that time, even while containing two of their most enduring tracks, “Mask” and the title song. Henk appeared in 1986; its dense use of sampled textures and dreamlike pieces such as “Port of Amsterdam” and “Bike in Head” stood in marked contrast to the polished surface of its predecessor and to the more restrained 1987 album In the Dutch Mountains, whose title track became the band’s strongest commercial success to date. Giant Normal Dwarf followed in 1990, an expansive work Hofstede conceived as a fairy tale for his infant child yet one that most strongly evoked the vividly colored psychedelia of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Glass Onion.”

Ting, released in 1992, adopted a leaner texture dominated by Stips’s piano, and later the same year the Nits—by then known simply as Nits—recorded Hjuvi with a complete symphony orchestra. Largely written by Stips, the work combined songs with instrumental sections styled after composers from Satie to the Gershwins and centered on Stips at the keyboard. Da Da Da arrived in 1994 and even received distribution in the United States and United Kingdom, although Sony again proved uncertain how to market it.

By this stage the Nits had become a three-piece after Alex Roelofs departed in 1981 and Michiel Peters left in 1985. Although additional musicians frequently augmented the lineup, the trio format persisted until Stips exited in 1996 to establish his own project, Stips Egotrip, leaving only original members Hofstede and Rob Kloet.

Despite operating with a core of two, Hofstede ensured that the 1997 album Alankomaat retained the rich sonic layers long associated with the band by placing greater emphasis on his own keyboard contributions. Likewise, on 2000’s Wool—their first release for Play It Again Sam—Hofstede engaged a string sextet, a jazz trumpeter, and assorted soulful backing vocalists to fill the absence left by Stips.

Following a six-year hiatus, Stips rejoined for the 2003 album 1974. Although the title references the year of the band’s formation, the material contained little that sounded retrospective; after the relatively restrained and precisely structured music of Alankomaat and Wool, it signaled a return to a freer, more spontaneous manner. Observers nonetheless noted that some of Hofstede’s strongest writing may have appeared on his 2002 solo album of music created for a video installation, Het Draagbare Huis (“The Portable House”). The trio brought in the string ensemble Mondriaan Quartet for 2005’s Les Nuits, and in 2008, reverting to a compact indie-trio format, Doing the Dishes became the band’s first Dutch Top Ten album, reaching number eight. Strawberry Wood followed a year later and peaked at number eleven. Nits returned three years afterward with Malpensa, which entered the Top 50 in 2012, before releasing the three-disc compilation Nits? in 2014 and the live collection Hotel Europa in 2015. Assembling performances recorded between 1990 and 2014, the latter set became their highest-charting release when it reached number five. Apparently at the peak of their popularity as they entered their fifth decade, the studio album Angst appeared in 2017.