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.
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 and had a blast recording them. We experimented with
lots of instruments on some of the songs and did all kinds of microphone
recording experiments. After all, isn't that what recording should be? One big
audiotastic experiment! Exactly, that's what I thought too.
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, right? Right!
We came up with titles for the songs. 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"
feel... Funnily enough this song came out sounding nothing like a
"chanson". But what the hell we like her anyway!
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...sometimes.
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
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