KNALLAND (2013)

In 2012 I moved into a new house in the Kanaleneiland area of Utrecht. Living in the neighbourhood were lots of creative people, including a big population of musicians.
At the initiative of Casper Broekaert, Tommy Ebben and Anne-Marie Gort we started the Knalland community, a collective of creative people with the goal to have something to show to the world within in 1 year.
It ended up being a full album, along with some videos. I ended up producing (and playing multiple instruments) on 7 songs. Martijn Groeneveld and Pim vd Werken were responsible for the final mixes. Knalland was released in 2013.

– Stones was recorded with Eloi Youssef (vocals), Maarten Rischen (mellotron) and Frank Wienk (percussion).
Brick by Brick  was recorded with Casper Adrien (vocals/guitar), Otto De Jong (drums), Daniel Rose (bass), Maarten Rischen (mellotron) and Hicham Oujamaa (percussion).
A Life Anew was recorded with Tommy Ebben (vocals, ukelele), Gino Bombrini (drums), Morris Kliphuis (horns), Matthijs Barnhoorn (violin), Arie Schockaert (electronics) and Maarten Rischen (keys).
I’m A Woman was recorded with Guy Corneille (vocals),  Sofie Letitre (vocals), Maarten Rischen (keys), Matthijs Barnhoorn (violin), Frank Wienk (percussion) and Bram Hakkens (drums).
Insights was recorded with Vera Otte (vocals) and Otto De Jong (percussion).
Wake Up was recorded with Sofie Letitre (vocals), Floris De Vries (banjo), Gino Bombrini (percussion) and Maarten Rischen (keys).
Benjamin was  recorded with Annelotte de Graaf (vocals), Otto de Jong (drums), Marlon Penninkhof (guitar/vocals) and Thierry Castel (keys), and taken from the Amber Arcades sessions.

20TH CENTURY HANSA (2013)

In 2013 I joined Bas Kragt and Melina Lindskogg to play in 20th Century Hansa. We never officially released anything but we played a couple of really nice shows that year. Luckily most of these shows were filmed so I can still let you hear some of the nice songs we wrote with this band.

GEM – GEM FM (2012)

At the end of the 2011 summer I joined Utrecht based indie band GEM for the Hunters Go Hungry tour. During the 2011/2012 period we toured all over NL.

In the spring of 2012 label Excelsior asked us to record a live EP with mostly covers. Maurits Westerik (vocals) did some acoustic songs, and with the band we recorded 3 tracks: A Girl Like You (Edwyn Collins), King Harvest (The Band) and Summer In The City (Lovin’ Spoonful).





MDUNGU – GAMBIAN SPACE PROGRAM (2011)

The tour for Afro What!? brought us all over The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Denmark, Turkey, China, Hong Kong and South Korea.
In 2011 we recorded our second album in a really nice studio in Germany, of which I unfortunately forgot the name… We did most of the recording ourselves along with the engineer from the studio. In 24 hour schedules we managed to record the whole thing in a week. The mixing was done by band members Frank Jonas and Ruben Montes in Spain.

Gambian Space Program was released on CD in 2011 by our own label Afro What!? The tour for this record gave us some nice travels to The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Malaysia and Canada.

GET UP – PRY & SKIGGY RAPZ (HABEK MIXTAPE 2010)

In 2010 Habek (Utrecht based hiphop platform) asked me to write a track together with Skiggy Rapz. This would be released on their yearly mixtape.
Get Up consists of a mixture of beats which I gave Skiggy to rap on, combined with some instrumental parts. The hookup was nice, and the sessions were a lot of fun!

HABEK_logo_full2

TUDUDUH – YEAH YEAH YEAH (2010)

Tududuh was actually the name under which songwriter Ronald Straetemans did his performances for years but in 2009 he decided that he wanted to work with a band. He ended up with me (bass), Otto de Jong (drums) and Jelte Timmer (guitar/keys/vocals).

In 2010 we recorded an EP with producer Erik Spanjers in his studio in Utrecht, which was released by ourselves the same year. 2 of the 3 songs also ended up as a video. The YeahYeahYeah video was shot at the Berlin mauerpark in one take, the What Everybody Does video was shot in Amsterdam.

Apart from playing clubs, we also played a lot in the streets of Berlin and Paris. Filmmaker HibOO captured some of our Parisian street performances on film. See the movies below.

Tududuh

MDUNGU – YAMANABOOLE (2010)

In 2010 Mdungu was asked to write a song about the FIFA world cup in South Africa. We recorded with Pieter Kloos in his studio in Eindhoven, along with producer Simon Akkermans.

Yamanboole was released in 2010 as a download only.

Dutch_Mdungu_by_Roel_Determeier

MDUNGU – AFRO WHAT!? (2009)

Mdungu was a band based on west African music combined with western influences. Saxophonist Thijs van Milligen started the band around 2002 and from the very first moment I was a part of it.

After touring a lot for years around The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Italy we recorded our first full length album at Studio 150 in Amsterdam, together with producer Joeri Saal. By that time the line-up (which changed a bit over the years) consisted of Thijs van Milligen (alto sax), David Beukers (tenor sax/vocals), Job Chajes (baritone sax), Frank Jonas (guitar), me (guitar), Merijn vd Wijdeven (bass), Ebou Gaye Mada (percussion/vocals), Ruben Montes (percussion) and Benoit Martiny (drums). We recorded on tape and everything was played live as a band at the same time.

Afro What!? was released on CD by the Dutch label Zimbraz in 2009.

PAX & PRY – A DAY OFF (2009)

After the 1st record A Day At The Office, we worked for 2 years on its follow up A Day Off. In 2009 we released the album at a house party, where we cooked dinner for all the guests (see movie below).

A Day Off was released without a label as 300 hand-numbered vinyl copies.


PAX & PRY - A Day Off (2009) album cover