We are very happy announce the imminent release of not one but two great albums, both coming out on September 17th through Heaven Hotel.

First up (alphabetically speaking, as both albums – as mentioned before – are coming out on the same day):

Angels Die Hard – Sundowner (Heaven Hotel – HH 1801)

Angels Die Hard‘s long-awaited (and superb) third album is finally being released on September 17th through Heaven Hotel and Jezus Factory Records. It will come out as a deluxe limited coloured vinyl edition of 300 copies and will also be available digitally.

Who else can explain better what this album is all about than the Angels themselves?

“Following the release of their second album Mood Ring, Angels Die Hard went into a deep and satisfying hibernation in South East Asia, followed by a tour of the bars, opium dens and beach clubs in the region. In their off time they went searching for the mythical Andaman Drongo bird, seeking to record it’s beautiful mating call.

While camping on a remote island in the Andamans, it dawned on them that the ecological impact of our Capitalist industrial civilisation reached even this idyllic place, when they saw a local sea gipsy smoking a bong made out of a Starbucks cup. This disgusted them greatly. This became a theme on their new album “Sundowner”, together with their common topics like love, making love, and the sometimes more complex sensations before and after.

Also on this island was Alain, who was on a solo survival trip, on a well deserved break from playing with Maxon Blewitt & Eriksson-Delcroix. The then three members of the Angels were impressed with his knife-making skills, muscle power, knowledge of sustainable communal living, and good looks, and that same evening they all joined a Jarawa tribal manhood initiation ritual, where Rob and Alain hit it off tremendously on drums & percussion, forming a rhythmic tandem that recalled the sound of rhinoceroses fornicating.

It soon became clear to all that Alain was going to join the Angels for their next record. It has to be noted that, when they discovered that Alain had only one cassette with him, with on the A-side ZZ Top and on the other side Ry Cooder, they immersed him in the music of The Petch Pin Thong Band, Thonghuad Faited, The Son Of P.M., Ike Reiko, Masami Kawahara & The Exotic Sounds, Masahiko Sato, Midori Takada, Haruomi Hosono, Glenn Branca, Boredoms, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, Ennio Morricone, Hawkwind, The Stooges, Butthole Surfers, Can, Chrome, Amon Duul, Tim Hardin, AR & Machines, Kleg, Black Sabbath and The Pretty Things, and others. These were enjoyed on vinyl, played on their beloved solar-powered record player.

Sundower was recorded in three days in the summer of 2017 at Borrey studios, where they tried to recreate the joy, sense of wonder, but also environmental sadness they all experienced on this remote Andaman island.”

And if those words don’t tickle your fancy enough already, you can read some more here or take a look and listen at ADH’s latest videos below.

(Ok, the second video isn’t technically a video, but what a great track – right?)

Rudy Trouvé, Elko Blijweert & Mauro Pawlowski – Screen/Crossroads (Heaven Hotel – HH 1802)

As we speak, Rudy Trouvé and his companions are getting ready to premier their first ever theatre play “Screen” this Friday (September 14th) at De Singel in Antwerp. The play was directed by Trouvé alongside Simon Allemeersch and features live music performed by Blijweert and Pawlowski.

Who else can explain better what this Gesammtkunstwerk is all about than whoever wrote this text that I just found on the website of De Singel?

“Rudy Trouvé and Simon Allemeersch translate 2D film footage into 3D environments, in this case a theatre auditorium. Together they write the story, a motion of no confidence in life itself, and thereby explore the ‘logic of the illogical’.
‘Screen’ is a theatre film in which reality and time blur. A man talks about the dreams in which he gets lost and no longer knows where he is. He meets a Faustian figure with dubious moral values who more or less acts as his guide. The whole thing is a cross between film noir and a psychedelic descent into hell. Accompanied live by Elko Blijweert & Mauro Pawlowski. Perception/time/reality and life itself are called into question. A Faust for a world of oversized pixels, conspiracy theories and alternative facts.”

There will also be a physical release with the music of the performance “Screen” combined with “Crossroads”, a collection of reworkings of Robert Johnson songs which are also integrated in the play. This release will be available on cd as well as on cassette (in collaboration with the great Jezus Factory label).

Live dates of Angels Die Hard, Screen/Crossroads as well as a few other projects are to be found in the Tour Dates section.

Elko Blijweert is this year’s curator of the Exposed Music festival. Learn all about this unique event featuring Roland Van Campenhout, Bjorn Eriksson, Dennis Tyfus, Milan W. and many more by watching the trailer below.

More information and an early peek inside tomorrow’s magic can be obtained by watching the interview/report on Antwerp’s local tv channel ATV here. Caution: the video is Dutch spoken and features Flemish folk dancing.

The Mechanics (Evrard, Hiele, Pawlowski, Thielemans, Trouvé) announce their debut album by presenting its first video. Listen to and watch “Out Of Lovetown” below.

You can learn more about The Mechanics by reading this interview. Caution: the interview is in Dutch and features references to free jazz.

Lastly, a mysterious teaser video turned up on Rudy Trouvé’s Facebook page, pseudo-promoting the even more mysterious project “Screen”. You can watch it here.