News

28 August 2011

Dark days ahead in the Low countries. Yesterday, the author of these lines drove into the heart of a storm with Mississippi Fred mcDowell blasting on the car stereo (and we dare anyone to find a more appropriate soundtrack). In the park next door, the rain digs craters with each heavy, thick rain drop and it's hard not being amazed by its force.

And all this after returning from weeks spent in isolation in the Swedish woods, where songs were written, forrests explored, bonfires started under the evening rain, and coffee sipped while watching northern dawns slowly lighting up. We came back with a title for the next album: Holken, the name of one of the houses we lived in up there.

Now comes the good old hard work: translating to tape the music ringing in our minds. More news on that next time.

Wishing you the best, as always, and dry clothes on your back.

 

18 december 2010

No Stille Nacht tonight for us.

Dear all, a very brief note in dark days that just got darker.
PTTS will not play this evening at the Stille Nacht festival in Lelystad. We have just lost a very dear friend of ours, formerly in our sister band Templo Diez. Gloribel Hernandez was a formidable human being, with a passion for living, a strong and big heart, and a soul so warm it could comfort and inspire anyone who travelled next to her.
We just can't see ourselves playing tonight, and we apologize deeply to the organization and the audience. By all means, forget the ice and snow and GO SEE THE FESTIVAL THIS EVENING, the lineup is one of those dreams come true.
In the coming days and/or weeks, there'll be a tribute to Glo on the website of Templo Diez.
Wishing that you all are well and sound. Please tell your friends you love them. Now, not later. And for all women reading this: get screened for breast cancer, regardless of your age.

 

23 november 2010Stille Nacht poster

These are dark days, as they say in Dutch. Fortunately, there are moments that feel like suspended in time and reaching out to the best in what a soul has to offer. We are lucky enough to have experienced such a moment on friday evening during our Crossing Border set, and needless to say, we are incredibly thankful for the warmth and support of the audience (full house!!! Inspite of none other than Low, Midlake and Blitzen Trapper playing at the same time next door!) who inspired us to find the fire in ourselves. Was it the full moon looming ? Nah, just good old-fashioned music playing its trick on everyone present.
We'll carry this memory for a very, very long time with us. You'll find some pictures taken by Bas Smits in the pics section of our Myspace and on our website (as well as a couple of reviews). Heartfelt thanks to Louis Behre and the Crossing Border team who booked us on the sole basis of our album (a brave gesture, very rare these days!)) and to all of you who attended the show and discovered our music.
Speaking of shows, we have a new one coming up (looks like we're getting pretty busy, at least according to our standards...) on December 18th at the Underground in Lelystad, NL. A tremendous lineup, see (that's: click) the poster for more info!

 

12 August 2010 ADA cover

We're very proud to have our song 'H.Wood' selected on the new online compilation from the always excellent French webzine À Découvrir Absolutement . Totally free and totally good, as always, so enjoy!

 

22 June 2010

And just like this, in the middle of the 4th Templo Diez Canadian tour, Pascal performed PTTS songs at the NXNE festival (Toronto, Canada) with Templo Diez' violin player Miranda Visser fiddling expertly along. Half of the set was new stuff, written on the way to Toronto.

Back home, a good surprise was awaiting: Color Map of the Southern Sky is now on the 3voor12 Luisterpaal (a Dutch measure of all things aurally cool and tasty), free for listen and streaming. It will stay there for a couple of weeks, possibly less, so hurry there!

 

6 March 2010 Color Map cover

Well, this is official: our debut album will be out on My First Sonny Weissmuller Recordings (dist. Konkurrent) on March 29th. Which will make it an early Spring album after all. To celebrate this, we got a new website design, we hope you like it.

This has been a long journey, and it feels good to finally reach this moment. And because it's not over yet, because it's never over, we'll embark on the next album ride very soon, with more songs and tales being woven as we speak.

 

7 February 2010

If you have followed our myspace blog (which tends to be more frequently updated than these pages..) during the last coupled of months, you've been able to watch the final steps of our first album's recording process.

To sum things up, "Color Map of the Southern Sky" will be released by the always tasteful My First Sonny Weissmuller in the Benelux, and distributed there (and exported elsewhere) by Konkurrent. Depending on CD production fate, the album should be in our hands end february. Bear with us a little bit longer, for you won't regret it.

The tracklist has evolved during along the way to make room for january songs and fall band recordings . Here it is:

More news when the CD will be in our hands. Watch the proverbial space and fare thee well.

 

11 October 2009

Would you believe it, people ? The (ten) tracks for our debut album are mixed (and since most of them are of the "less is more" species, the mastering is as good as done...). To mark this, and the arrival of Fall on the low lands, there's a new preview track on our myspace page.

 

30 June 2009

There's now a radio portrait of Praise the Twilight Sparrow and (sort of) sister band Templo Diez, with interview and live session extracts, which has been put together by Berry Kamer for his show Dwars on Radio 6 (VPRO). And it's very much a Dutch radio, but the interview is in English (tainted with some seriously heavy Southern French accent...).

 

05 March 2009

We had a blast last tuesday while recording a session for Berry Kamer's always excellent Dwars radio show (Dutch VPRO radio 6). Sound was very good. Sandwiches were very good. Espresso was very good (and that's quite a miracle in Amsterdam...). And most importantly, the mood and the people were very good.

You can listen for the result on the Dwars Radio 6 website !

 

02 February 2009

Shaking a bit of the snow from our coats and getting into talkative mode for once: we've got a recording session coming up for the always excellent Dwars show on the Dutch radio VPRO (check www.vpro.nl/programma/dwars/). We'll record the session on march 3rd and it should be broadcast not too long after that.

Furthermore, the recordings are progressing slowly (because new songs keep flowing) but surely (they sound good!), so apologies for the time spent, but it won't be in vain. We hope.

 

21 march 2008

Dark days, dark clouds, heavy as lead. Snow showers on a spring day. The full moon hiding behind thick clouds when it would have been more than welcome on our skins and in our eyes (and then the full moon strong enough to turn the night sky into a gothic painting). Minds wandering thousand leagues away and back. Thousand days away and back. Fights, 11:11, trains rushing in the Amsterdam dusk, cold, dreams that carve shadows under our eyes. They’re cutting trees in my street (but plant some more a couple of blocks away). Last night, a rainstorm turning people into mad drones.

But there’s music, as always. And soul and heart and warmth, for those who seek.

Our debut album will be called "color map of the southern skies" and we wanted to share that with you. (and yes indeed, surprisingly for those who follow our sibling bands Templo Diez and White Sands, this is no town name!). The number of tracks is not set yet (there’s unfortunately enough material for a double album ; or fortunately, depending on how you look at it... We’ll see what happens in the end).

We wish you a great Spring, a great full moon, and many tales and feats. May this find you well.

 

30 november 2007

Because winter is getting closer, we couldn't leave you like this in the cold. Therefore, we posted 2 new demo MP3s on our myspace page . "Cienega" and "Fall #1", from our forthcoming debut album.

We hope they'll find you well, and will warm up your heart. Feel free to let us know what you think of them, we'd love to hear from you, you know it.

 

25 september 2007

No Reeperbahn this year unfortunately, but we were treated with a great ZXZW gig last sunday. Thanks infinitely to the wonderful audience and the organization. We're now on the road to recordings ; lots of sunsets in perspective, and autumn as a background...

 

03 august 2007

We've been shortlisted by the German festival Reeperbahn (september 2007). Waiting for a confirmation, with all our fingers crossed. More about that (hopefully) in the coming weeks... Back home, the ZXZW festival in Tilburg has scheduled us to play on september 23rd in a synagogue. Expect plenty of atmosphere, it will be a great gig (and a great festival, don't miss it!).

Recordings are going well. We're taking our time, as always... that's the trees' fault, you know...

And last but not least, Thomas Dodd (akaIimage shifter) has taken some terrific pictures from us during one of our Atlanta shows, back in March, and gave them his beautiful and eerie signature touch (I don't dare to use the word 'processing', it's so much more like a painting). Thank you so much Thomas!

 

12 may 2007

Several news coming our (and your !) way: first of all, we'll play the most excellent ZXZW festival in Tilburg, Netherlands on 23rd september. Furthermore, a flurry of positive reviews, namely in this month's Soundcheck magazine (reviewing our SXSW performance, as well as giving us a much coveted spot in their 'label alert' section!!), plus a review of our untitled promo EP on the US-based webzine racketscan and in the Dutch mag Speaker. We're busy building up a Press section on the site where you'll be able to read all that prose very soon.

Oh yeah, and we keep dreaming of Arizona...

 

24 march 2007

We're back from a terrific US tour filled with great gigs and enthusiastic response from the audience. Special thanks to Brad, Bart, Delphine (and the SA indie gang), Bill, Patrick, Allen, Jennifer, Scott, everyone at MPshows, and all the ones I forget while I'm typing this - this whole trip will fuel our minds for the years to come. To everybody who attended the shows, we can't thank you enough for your kindness and we hope to see you again very soon. Now it's time to have a decent rest and start to think about recordings when we wake up... oh yeah, and day jobs :-)