Odyssice
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| Odyssice | |
|---|---|
| Origin |  Badhoevedorp, Netherlands |
| Genre(s) | Rock Pop Progrock |
| Years active | 1986–Present |
| Website | www.odyssice.com |
| Members | |
| Bastiaan Peeters Bart Kühne Jeroen van der Wiel Peter Kosterman |
|
| Former members | |
| André Hubbeling, Alan Natele, Erik Aafjes, Pascal van de Pol | |
Contents |
[edit] The Band
Odyssice is a Dutch progressive rock band. The name is a fantasy name associated with Greek mythology. It was founded in 1986 by Bastiaan Peeters (guitar), André Hubbeling (keyboards) and Alan Natele (drums). The group had an enormous start when 'Track One' was played on the Dutch radio-show Countdown Café in 1987. Well known bands like IQ, Pendragon, Oblique and other prog-bands were played in this radio-show. The phone never stopped ringing. Kees Baars host of 'Countdown Café' had never seen such a reaction. The music of Odyssice is quite unique and can be described as dark clouds of string-ensembles and beautiful long guitar-solos. The guitar-solos add a vocal quality to this impressive instrumental music. All these ingredients make the music colourful and illustrative.
[edit] First Release
The first member changes had occurred in 1989. Bart Kühne replaced Alan and Erik Aafjes was added on bass. 'Losing Her' was their new track on the 'Exposure'-LP from the magazine 'Sym-Info', and according to 'Sym-Info's' office 'Losing Her' was one of the best songs on the album. The huge interest lad to an invitation to perform at a 'Sym-Info's' festival at 't Noorderligt in Tilburg on June 16th 1989. The Noorderligt performance was a huge success. Requests for the live tape of that show were enormous and it was sold out in no time.
The band was musically successful but musical differences caused them to disappear from spotlight for some time. Then Bastiaan and Bart decided to reincarnate Odyssice with new members. After a long period of try-outs, including singers, Odyssice became a quartet again. The band became complete with the addition of bassist Pascal van de Pol and keyboard-wizard Jeroen van der Wiel.
[edit] Debut Album
In 1997 the debut CD was released. The mini-album Moondrive was well received by both the prog-critics and prog-fans world-wide. Orders from all over the world were placed, including Brazil, United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland, and even the far corners of Asia.
The release was followed by a series of performances kicking off at the very first ProgFarm in Bakkeveen-NL. Tivoli (ProgWorld), De Lantaarn (SympHel) and Hedon (with Pallas) followed shortly after.
[edit] New Millennium
After two fruitful years and a sold out album Odyssice decided to take it slow in 1999. They worked on new material for the follow up to Moondrive. The new songs were finished at the end of that same year and in January 2000 the recording of Impression took place.
Shortly after the contracts were signed with Cyclops records, the new Odyssice album Impression was released world-wide on November 1st. Once again the album has been well received by both prog-critics and prog-fans.
In 2001 there were two performances in which Odyssice played tracks from Moondrive and Impression.
Due to personal problems at the end of 2001 everything around the band became very quiet. And mid 2002 Pascal decided to leave the band and focus on a complete different music-style, leaving Menno, Bastiaan and Jeroen without bass-player.
The album Moondrive was well regarded by fans and there were a lot of requests for a re-make. Odyssice agreed with Cyclops records to do just that and the new re-issue contained a multimedia part with live video's and several other goodies. This album was released June 2003.
Finding a suitable new bass-player turned out to be a more challenging task than first expected. Resulting finally at the end of 2004 the arrival of bass-player Peter Kosterman.
After a slow start in 2005 when the band moved their rehearsal room to a new location, which had to be completely re-decorated, the band are now fully in action writing new material for a new album to be released in 2006.
