Supersister – no, not another Girls Aloud wannabe group – were among the most innovative and original bands of the early prog era. And their debut album, Present From Nancy, has become iconic since its release in 1970.
“We never realised just what it meant until about 10 years ago,” keyboard player/vocalist Robert Jan Stips told Prog in 2009. “We got back together in 1999 for the first time in 25 years, to play Progfest in Los Angeles. We were amazed that people came to see us from all around the world. Everyone kept saying how important that album had been.”
The Dutch band – Stips, bassist Ron van Eck, flautist/vocalist Sacha van Geest and drummer Marco Vrolijk – were inspired by two vital artists: Soft Machine and Frank Zappa.
“I heard five minutes of Soft Machine at a party in the late 1960s, and that was enough for them to make a lasting impact,” Stips says. “They gave me the key to a new kind of music. Frank Zappa was the other big influence. Not just as a musician, but also as a public figure and the way he championed new ideas.”
Supersister brought their own interpretations of Soft Machine and Zappa to Present From Nancy – and it was a success, despite the difficulties they encountered.
“We had to record with virtually no budget, so did the whole thing over four nights, from midnight to 6am, during studio down-time,” Stips says. “But then, creativity comes from adversity. That’s also why there are deliberately no guitars: it meant we were forced to find new ways of expressing ourselves.”
With a strong awareness of what they wanted, everything went to plan until they ran out of music. “We were short of a song. So I sat down at the organ and just played what came into my head. That’s what you hear on Dona Nobis Pacem – it was made up on the spot!”
Among the more intriguing tracks is a 22-second burst from The Byrds’ Eight Miles High, something which came from the way Supersister played live. “We did little snippets like that; threw them in randomly. We never had a strict set-list, but kept challenging ourselves,” Stips explains.
“I studied classical music and learnt a lot about what you shouldn’t do. So with this album I wanted to break those rules. Perhaps that’s why it came out so differently.”
Supersister released five albums with Polydor, although they’d broken up by the time 1975’s Spiral Staircase arrived. “The same week Supersister stopped, I was asked to join Golden Earring for an American tour,” Stips told Prog in 2014. “I had two very interesting years with them.”
He went on to join Dutch pop stars The Nits and developed a solo career, while also writing music for movies. Supersister reactivated for a year in 2000 and again in 2010, before Stips formed Supersister Project in 2019. Their most recent album, Nancy Never Knew, was released in March 2025 under the band’s original name.
