June 21st, 2009

+! Album 99% finished
++ DUNAjam mini-tour (looking back)
+- Home


Album
We did it. Finally! The record is as good as done! We're going to mix it 2nd week of July. Until then we'll be tweaking, pondering, listening, blaspheming and asking everyone for advice on what to do.
We've been talking to a few friendly labels as of late about the release of the album. More news on that soon, as well. Psyched!

DUNAjam
Having been invited to the 3rd annual DUNAjam on the Costa Verde of Sardinia was an amazing experience for us. It is hard to describe the magic of this guerilla-style community based un-festival. You should really just go to http://www.dunajam.net and read about it yourself. We had a superb time!
We should also not leave unmentioned the extreme kindness and courteousy show to us by the lovely people of the Party Program in Lille (FR), the patient patrons of Tiki's Pub in Geneva (CH) and the moustachioed kindhearts of Aeterblissement in Cologne. Truly, you were too kind. You made our trip. We really appreciate it

Home
For the next few months we'll be home for some much needed tour and album release preparations. We hope to see you on the road again in September or at our Album release shows @ Noorderzon Festival!

-The Black Atlantic


April 3rd, 2008

Final recording time set end of May
September: EU support for Windmill (uk)

We're finally getting around to finishing up the album. We booked time from May 20th - May 24th to get it all done.
We've also been confirmed to support the awesome Windmill (!!) on their album release tour in September. Coincidentally that should be our album release tour as well!
Psyched, not coincidentally...

-Geert

February 10th, 2008

Austria, Italy and Germany tour + 2 new (unmastered) songs up on Myspace (etc.)

We are leaving for tour today!
We start in Vienna tomorrow and then head out to Italy for 8 dates. Check the tourdates + music section for venues near you that we'll be playing, and for the 2 new songs...

see you on the road!

-Geert

December 4th, 2008

+ Home
- Marcel quits (again)
+ Looking for new member(s)
++ January mini tour w/ Jonquil (UK) | February Italy tour
+++ Kim's new album!

Home from recording...
Well, we made it home alive and well, just in time to celebrate St. Nikolaas with our families!
Recording in a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of NY was an amazing but trying experience for us. Many long days in thermal underwear spent, and we're still not quite finished with the record. About 80-90% done, I'd say. We have some more vocals and bass tracking to do, and possibly some extra instrumentation on a few of the songs (I have some ideas, always do...) if we get the chance. But, we are very happy with the 11 songs tracked, so far. I feel like we've definitely turned a corner, or two, with this one...
A big 'tank yuz' to Maarten (In a Cabin With) for his time, patience, Dutch jokes and critical ear and mouth. And to our friends and musical contributors in Peter Silberman of The Antlers, Leo Maymind of Spanish Prisoners and Adam and Brendan of Soulmobile Eternal for giving us their voices and performances on the: accordeon, weird Indian flute thingy, mini-harp, banjo, guitar, slide-guitar, concertina organ and trombone! The record (already) sounds great with your performances and would be not nearly as good without them.
Some of the new(er) songs took us directions never imagined and some of the old(er) songs reinvented themselves right in front of our eyes. Like I've written before: it's the little accidents during recording that are fantastic. Or maybe they're just not accidents at all. "It's all part of a much larger plan, man. Dude".

Marcel quits (again)
After having re-joined the band only recently in September (2008) and recording in NY with The Black Atlantic this past month, Marcel Wolthof decided to leave the band, again. To each his own. No hard feelings, I think...We will keep on playing small shows to small audiences, crashing on couches and not playing in cover bands for now. Until we die. In the mean time, I'm sure we will find a solution for the rhythm section situation.

Looking for member(s)
Actually, we're looking for a not-just-a-drummer drummer and a not-just-bassplayer bassplayer. If you feel that that's you, a not-just-drummer-drummer or not-just-a-bassplayer bassplayer, then you are ideally suited to play in our band. We prefer can-sing-and-play-other-instrument(s)- instrumentalists! Like Marcel but not him. Or, two of you!(?). One is fine. But, if you can manage to somehow clone yourself that'd be very handy, in case we need the other you to fill-in when you quit and we have tours booked. No worries though if you can't clone yourself yet. We can't either.
Oh yeah, you have to be somewhat nice, like Marcel. We like(d) him alright. We also like coffee! Love it. Do you like coffee? It's okay if you don't...
But, if you and/or your clone, or a friend, think you want to be in this band...Well, stop thinking about it! Go here! and read what it's all about. Then, think about it for a while, again. Take your time though. If you lose interest, just write to us before you join the band, and say: "Hi. Hello. I considered it. Good luck though."
If you're still interested, well then gee golly drop us a line here!

January mini-tour w/ Jonquil + February Italy tour!
Ah, the good stuff! Tours!!!
We're very excited for our upcoming mini-tour in January next year (2009) with the wonderful Jonquil from Oxford (UK) whom we already played a few shows with before. They Pop our socks off Experimentally and also in Other ways! O, Hugo, how we love thee...
Also, in February (2009) Kim and I are doing a fun little collaborative tour, to Italy and back. Meaning I'll play on his songs and he'll still play on our songs. Some other friends will be involved too though. I know, this get's confusing. That's why they call it c-o-l-l-a-b-o-r-a-t-i-v-e. It means: confusing. Learned that in school. Check the shows section for (up)dates!

Kim's new album!
Saving the best for last. Kim Janssen's debut solo album "The Truth is, I am always responsible" will be released by Volkoren Records in January, 2009 and features Marla Hansen (Sufjan Stevens, My Brightest Diamond) on vocals beside Kim.
It contains 9 intimate and personal songs - no covers - in the vein of Owen, Rocky Votolato or Damien Jurado. Good source material!
All written and arranged by Kim "The Sigh, The Smile" Janssen. He recorded it in an old abandoned train station in Housatonic, Massachussetts (USA). And, it's a heartbreaker folks. So, keep an eye out for this gem!

I think that's it for now. Probably.
Happy St. Nikolaas and keep the faith kids. Until soon...

Geert

October 26th, 2008
Recording an album, shooting a video + a US (East Coast) tour w/ Spanish Prisoners + Antlers!!

Hey!
We're up in our cabin in NY right now. Getting ready to record our full-length album in the gorgeous Adirondack Mountains, and to shoot a video around the recording.
We keep a diary for the Leeuwarder Courant here. We'll also have notes, video posts and lots of pictures up on our blog. So check that out.
And, if you live in the US. Come check us out on tour mid-November. Dates are up in the shows section. Greetings from the beautiful Adirondack Mountains and we'll see you soon,
Geert

September 22nd, 2008
This Monday - House show w/ Rue Royale (USA), Cedarwell (USA)!!

August 30th, 2008
House show w/ Jonquil (UK), We Swim You Jump next week!

Yes!...next week we play two shows in Utrecht and Groningen with the awesome Jonquil from Oxford, UK. Definitely come see this awesome band. I will also be playing some new songs from the upcoming record, to be recorded in NY in November (a detailed briefing will follow on that in the next weeks...promise).
Anyway, here's the flyer for the Groningen show. See you soon!

June 27th, 2008
Family Vacation (tour) starts next week

We're going on vacation (roadtrip) to Germany, Italy and France! We'll be visiting friends whom we haven't seen in a while - we are very excited! - and we'll play 10 shows or so, along the way. Please come out and say hello and have drink with us. We'd love to see you all in a town near you. Click on the banner for the tourdates...

love, Geert (& Megan)

June 1st, 2008
The Black Atlantic supports Patrick Watson!

Wow! Just got back home for a day from our European tour and we have amazing news: The Black Atlantic will be supporting one of my current favorite artists Patrick Watson at the Stadsschouwburg in Groningen this upcoming Tuesday!
I heard we got the support slot this Thursday on our way from Uppsala to Malmö in Sweden but I didn't have time to update the website until now with this great news.
The show will be at the beautiful old city theater. There are still some tickets left for the show but you'll have to be quick. You can reserve them by calling De Oosterpoort at 050-368 0 368.
Also, don't forget that we play another show today at the Platformtheater (Groningen), with our touring buddies in Saturday Looks Good to Me. And also with the wonderful The Tranquis from Groningen. It's going to be beautiful...
I will follow this update up soon with another full diary update, including pictures etc. love,

-Geert

May 19th, 2008
NEW SONG + European tour w/ Saturday Looks Good to Me starts Wednesday!

Weeeehooo!
We are (finally) starting our European tour w/ the almighty o' rockin' Saturday Looks Good to Me (US) this upcoming Wednesday, in Germany. We've put together quite the rocking set, with 4 brand new songs and some of the older material off the EP. We can't wait for you folks to hear it all come together on stage.
Also, we just recorded a new song today! . We did recorded it 'live' in our practice space. It all came together within 20 minutes or so. We played it through once in front of 2 microphones. Matthijs mixed it, and done it was.
I think some of you will be surprised by it. It's kind of a cute little song for kids to get scared to before they go to bed. This little lullaby is called "There Are Monsters". It will be up later tonight on our Myspace.
I wrote the song on the train last week coming back from pre-tour rehearsals. Apparently the train conductor who passed by, while I was sitting in the in between compartment of the wagon playing, liked the song a lot. Enough, in any case to hold the train's microphone up to me playing. He blasted it live throughout the entire train! Weird, but cool.
Anyway, we hope you'll like the song. See you on the road soon.
hugs, hugs and more hugs,

-Geert

May 2nd, 2008
Special house concert in Groningen w/ Björn Kleinhenz (SE), Adam Arthur @ Prinsenhof

On Monday, May 12th Groningen indie collective Ham Radio Communications will organize yet another house concert inside the beautiful salon room of the Prinsenhof. The lovely people of the "Bonobo" living community, who run the Carex housing organization, have once again opened up their doors to artists and audience for a musical gathering in an intimate and homely setting. House concerts are a unique and intimate opportunity to experience music at a quiet (listening) volume and in within hands' range proximity. This May 12th edition will feature Sweden's finest singer-songwriter Björn Kleinhenz and his fantastic band and also the amazing Arthur Adam from Amsterdam alongside Geert, who will play a solo / acoustic set of mainly brand new material. He is very honored to be playing alongside these fine artists.
Note: due to the nature and size of these shows there are only a limited amount of tickets available. So get your tickets fast!!
Before you go and reserve yours via hamradiocommunications@gmail.com though, please check out the beautiful pictures of HRC's last house concert edition at the Prinsenhof, March 5th.

May 1st, 2008
The Black Atlantic selected for Popronde 2008 (Sep, Oct, Nov)

Watch out for a Popronde edition in a city in the Netherlands near you. Visit the Popronde 2008 website for more information!

April 28th, 2008
Germany and Scandinavian tour in May - June !
w/ Saturday Looks Good to Me

That's right folks. From May 21st until June 11th The Black Atlantic will be taking a 3 week long trip through beautiful Germany and Scandinavia opening up for indie pop-fusionists Saturday Looks Good to Me from Ann-Arbor, Michigan, USA. You can check them out here. We are very excited to be sharing the van, stage and tour with them! Please come out and support.
All tour dates are up in the shows section.
See you on the road soon,
-Geert

April 9th, 2008
New band photos taken today! Thank you Joost Brouwer

Check them out here and here or download our complete press package here

March 7th, 2008
The Black Atlantic confirmed for the Bevrijdingsfestival!

Wow...The Black Atlantic has just been confirmed play the annual May 5th Liberation Day Bevrijdingsfestival!
Other acts confirmed are: Nada Surf, Datarock, Friska Viljor, Pete Philly & Prerequisite and more!
The Black Atlantic is very honored to be playing alongside such great and renowned acts and feels blessed to be allowed this opportunity. Please come out early and support!
The band will play at 13:00 sharp on the main stage.

December 28th, 2007
FREE downloads: "Madagascar" and "Lonely Moons" !!

Go here and download the songs for free!

November 4th, 2007
New song up
Geert starts solo tour !

There is a brand new song up from the October recording sessions. You can listen to it here
Also, Geert started his solo / acoustic tour in Berlin today @ Magnet Club! And, there are plenty of NEW dates up for the US tour w/ Tim Williams.
So, take a look in the shows section to see if Geert will be playing a city or town near you. He'll be playing two of the new songs "Madagascar" and "Lonely Moons" for you on this tour. Possibly even more new stuff.

October 14th, 2007

European + US Tour w/ Tim Williams!!

Dates for Geert's solo / acoustic (Café) tour in November are up now. We also just added the first batch of confirmed US tourdates with Tim Williams in November and December. We're excited!
Please, take a look in the shows section and find out if The Black Atlantic will be playing a town near where you live. We hope.

October 12th, 2007
Studio Report (update)

Howdy y'all,
We holed ourselves up in Matthijs' Paperboat Studio last week. Check out their website for some cool pictures and tech. specs. Or go to our Myspace and take a look at the folder of pictures we've uploaded there...
We recorded 3 new songs. Had a blast recording them. We experimented lots. With instruments. Even some experimentation with microphones. After all, isn't that what recording should be? One big audiotastic experiment?! Right!

Hopefully you will be able to listen to these musical concoctions we brewed for you very soon. We're still mixing the tracks as I type this. After the mixing process we're sending our precious tunes over to our friend Tubefreak (www.tubefreak.com) to give them that glossy shine and analog warmth and cuddliness. I mean, Winter is coming soon and we wouldn't want our songs catching a cold so soon after they are exposed to the world...Brrrr
We came up with titles for the songs though. Always a tough nut to crack. The first song we recorded and mixed is called "Madagascar". Actually, you may be familiar with that one from the 'live video' from the "Lopend Vuur" radio pod and vidcast session (www.lopendvuur.nl) that we have up for viewing right now. This time around though we recorded it properly and with the whole band. First I laid down the guitar tracks for Robert (drums) to manhandle and bruise on drums. Then we added Matthijs' soft fuzzy basslines and smoothed it all out. We topped it off with some cool organs, harmonium and mellotron. Just to give it a little "chanson" flavor... Funnily enough this tastes like nothing French. But we like her anyway. Frenched out or not.

The second song we recorded is an acoustic song. Our friend and fellow singer/songwriter Florian Wolff (www.myspace.com/florianwolff) lent me his awesome Martin & co acoustic guitar to record it with. Thanks Florian!! This song'll be called "Lonely Moons". It's a more downtrodden and intimate kind of song with a reference to a naked lady in a mall whom I have never met or seen. It's really one of those songs you should listen to on headphones when going out for a late night stroll. And, don't forget to bring your umbrella! We had a little accident with the rain while recording this song. While recording, we had forgotten to close one of the windows in the studio (it was behind a curtain so we did not notice it). It was raining heavily that night. The way it does pretty much every other night in the Netherlands. When we listened back to our favourite take(s) of the song we heard the rain quietly pattering in the background. So, of course we kept it and recorded more rain because it was such a wonderful accident! It reminded me of the fact that (some) accidents can be wonderful....
The third song we recorded was our "grand experiment". Working title: "The Drunken (Bastard) Song". Matthijs had a few too many beers while laying down his basstracks so obviously it's called "The Drunken (Bastard) Song". Obviously. It is one bastard of a song for sure though. We're still unsure what to really call it or think of it. I mean, we like like it. Kind of like we like our friend the platypus here:
You just don't know what to think of it. Apparently it's a mammal but it sure doesn't look like one. It looks like an otter with a duck's beak and cat's paws or something. Anyway, I digress...We used 13 different instruments on this last song and we're still not sure whether we should dress it up more or take some stuff off. My gut instinct says: more!! Anywho, among the instruments we used (off the top of my head) were: a harmonium, a saxophone, an organ, a piano, a bass guitar, an acoustic guitar (Florian's), a (slide) electric guitar, a cello, a mellotron, a tambourine and eggs (shakers)... We also borrowed the lovely pipes (voice) of Mrs. Hoffman - van der Velde (my wife) and Matthijs' (bass) and combined them into the sweetest sounding little choir you'll ever hear. Or at least, the second sweetest sounding little choir you'll ever hear.

I forgot to mention Arjen, our "pianist", in this little story so far. He's the one responsible for laying down all those harmonium, organ and piano parts on the songs. Matthijs did all the Mellotron parts besides playing the bass and playing engineer. He's multifunctional like that. Anyway, Arjen's a pretty good saxophone player, I think, and he wanted to add his "Jazzzz" to our "Easy Listening & Healing". So we let him masturbate his 'sax' for a while until we decided to just have him play steady notes. He didn't get mad though. Arjen's a cool dude like that. He's "Jazzzz....", you know.

Alright, I hope you enjoyed the show. Tune in for some Audio proof of these songs soon! Until then,
Geert

September 1st, 2007

Hey!! We had some problems while updating the website. So, unfortunately our previous updates from the past year news have been lost. Nothing to worry about as it was all old news anyway. As far as 'new news' goes: we've added new shows to the shows section and we've got more new record label info, new recording plans, new members and new touring plans to be announced soon.

So, check in with us sometime soon, okay? In the meantime go add us on myspace (by clicking on Media) and drop us a comment if you're into that. Or sit back, have a nice cup of tea with in town with your friends, eat a sandwich and enjoy the last days of summer.

cheers,

-Geert

© 2007. The Black Atlantic