Mint

MINT, aptly named after the numerous mint-references in cultmovie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, became a household name in Belgian music with their breakthrough album «Magnetism» , released in 2006. With their very own mix of soaring melodies, adventurous arrangements and clever lyrics they are a band very hard to pigeonhole. But their songs push all the right buttons – here's some facts:

The radio loves MINT. With songs like 'Your shopping lists are poetry', 'The magnetism of pure gold' and 'I save my smiles for the weekend' topping both Belgian, Dutch ànd US listener's charts.

MINT has built an impressive reputation as a live band with memorable concerts on big festivals like Pukkelpop, Dour, Nandrin, Reeperbahnfestival and in clubs like the Ancienne Belgique, Petrol, Paradiso, Botanique. As top of the bill and as support act for bands like Nada Surf, Air Traffic en The Charlatans.

Quite some MINT songs were used as the soundtrack for commercials as well as arthouse films with the most notable being 'Your shopping lists are poetry' in a glossy German TV-commercial. The band was nominated for a TMF-award and won a PIL-award. And on one autumn's Sunday in 2006 MINT even made Belgium's eighty something Queen Fab dance. Erhm yes indeed!

In the fall of 2009 the band - consisting of brothers Erwin Marcisz (singer and songwriter) and Philippe Marcisz (bass), Kim Windmolders (synths) and Steve Janssens (guitar) – started working on a new album in a spooky run-down factory on the outskirts of Hasselt. True to famous football player Johan Cruijff's adagio 'Every disadvantage has it's advantage' they used the «problem» of not having a drummer as the catalyst for a whole new way of working: the recording process became a sonic puzzle of which the pieces slowly fell in place. Whenever a song would reach a certain stage ace drummer Karel De Backer (Novastar, Dead Man Ray) would get a phonecall with the invitation to come and do his amazing thing. Once the puzzle was complete Phill Vinall (Deus, Placebo) gave it a shiny and solid mix. The result is 'HITS from her laser', a record flirting with the boundaries of their self-created musical universe, defined by analog synths, strange sound bites and acoustic guitars. MINT has succeeded in crafting an album of songs that sound familiar and off-kilter in equal measure; from the bouncy, psychedelic waltz of 'The Vacuum song', the drone-pop of 'Second hand store' echoing both The Cars as well as the Velvet

Underground, the twisted rock of 'The names have not been changed so as to hurt the guilty ones' to the psych pop-hop of 'Turning the screws' it is quite an adventurous route but the songs are simply top throughout.