Fay Lovsky

Dutch singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Fay Lovsky (born Fay Luyendijk) debuted with the eight-song EP Sound on Sound (1980), on which she sang and played all the instruments. Confetti (1981) is a confused collection of dance-pop songs inspired by Burt Bacharach and by 1960s teen-idols like Dusty Springfield (Maggie). Origami (1983) is another hodgepodge of kitsch, from the Caribbean funk-soul of Ramon to the doo-wop era parody of Sugar Me Sam. Mostly she seems to be an Olivia Newton-John wannabe. She matured on Cinema (1985), which contains the Caribbean-tinged song du jour The Islands and the upbeat dance-pop ditty Goodnight Galileo, but also original creations like Rainy Day Men, Phantom Conversations and Robot.

She recorded an album of compositions by Gyorgy Ligeti and Luciano Berio with an avantgarde quintet. She suddenly turned into a revivalist of vintage pop, blues and jazz on the 19-minute mini-album JoPo in MoNo (1992), on which she crafted deliciously cartoonish skits like Passi Messa, evocations of French music of the 1950s like Appellation Controlee, and even an instrumental Duet for Noses performed by a comic jug band.

She then formed a band with multi-instrumentalist Joost Belinfante (violin, mandolin, trumpet, trombone, harmonica, flute, theremin, harmonium, etc), guitarist Cok van Vuuren, bassist Gert-Jan Blom and drummer Louis Debij: La Bande Dessinee. She sang and played vibraphone, marimba, theremin, glockenspiel, zither and synthesizer on the 21-song La Bande Dessinee (1996), another album of pop, blues and jazz revival, but with also some surreal experiments like Underwater. The band returned with Numbers (1997), Eigen Weg (2000) and Maze of Mirrors (2002).

She also played bass in the bluegrass band Steam Power (2017).

Thirty years after JoPo in MoNo (1992) she released Jopo in Mono XL (2022).