In 2000 the band from Belgium formed around Lionel and Antoine who are both singer and songwriter of Girls in Hawaii. Lionel’s brother Brice joined on guitar, Antoine’s brother Denis on drums and with their friends Daniel as a bassist and Christophe playing the keyboard the formation was soon established and gained a solid reputation in their home country. We meet the six collegiate-looking Belgians in the early evening, march along the Gürtel to the Hauptbücherei – Lionel and Brice improvising on Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” – and ascend the 98 steps to its roof terrace for capturing the evenfall over the hustle and bustle in the streets. It is a very atmospheric and frail scenery which gently frames the soundscapes that Girls in Hawaii create. While the befalling night is announced by a light breeze Lionel raises his high voice to sing melancholic lyrics and Antoine enters with his haunting susurration. A goose-skin feeling that stays when the band starts picking chords for the nursery-rhyme-like “Couples On TV” sung by Daniel. What appears simple and harmonic as a background melody seems queasy when listening closely to the nightly storytelling. Although the kind Belgians declare cold weather, forests, guilt, ghosts, cats, the fog and especially landscapes as their inspirations, their sound is far from being declamatory: dreamily, not flowery, touching, yet not overemotional.

planyourescape.be