Dutch musician and record producer Han Uil has announced the title and the release date of his new solo album. Walking In Circles is premiering June 16th, preorders have started on his Bandcamp page. A trailer of the album is also out, you can watch it below.
ABOUT THE ALBUM
“Walking in Circles is my fifth solo album. I have further evolved the musical direction taken on my previous album Esoteric Euphony. And this resulted in nine new varied and, to me, immersive songs. A combination of progressive and mainstream rock. I have spent a long time making it and put my heart and soul into it.
I try to do something different on every song that I have not done before. I don’t want any song to sound the same. I am not pretending to have done anything progressive that has never been done before. But every song should sound fresh, adventurous and relevant to me.
The song Music Loves gives you an insight to some of the albums that have influenced me a lot in my musical journey throughout the years.
Compared to my previous albums, I think I have particularly improved as a producer and mixer. Walking in Circles is my best sounding album. Also having had a singing coach for about a year has improved my singing capabilities considerably. I can put on this album on my headphones, listen to the whole lot and love it. I’m very happy that it’s out there now.
Also compared to previous albums, the songs have a more extensive palette of sound textures by utilizing great guest performances on sax, flute, cello, violin and Hammond.
The title of the album has been taken from the title track. That song is about a guy who gets lost in the dense jungle and is unable to find his way out and wanders in circles.
But walking in circles isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It can also help to come up with new (musical) ideas and cope with stress.
TumbleTown bandmate Aldo Adema had a brilliant idea for the cover design and has skillfully hand-drawn this portrait with ‘me’ walking around in circles in my head” — Han Uil tells.
HAN UIL is a Dutch musician and producer for his solo albums. He is best known as frontman for the bands Antares and Seven Day Hunt and as songwriter/singer/guitarist for TumbleTown (a collaboration with Aldo Adema and Erik Laan). In 2006 he released his debut solo album Alone and in 2010 the well received second studio album Dark in Light followed by the Americana influenced album Han – Lawless local heroes (2015). In 2019 Han returned with his fourth solo album Esoteric Euphony featuring ten daring songs in the line of TumbleTown.
Han started writing songs in the mid nineties. Gaining experience as a singer-songwriter by recording two acoustic solo albums on an old 4-track and playing lead guitar in a couple of indie bands. In 2000 he became front man of the Dutch progressive rock band Antares. The under own management released album Choking the Stone (2001) was praised in the press. Noteworthy was a spot at the ProgPower Europe festival in 2002.Three years later the band decided to disband.
Accompanied by former Antares band mates he created the mellow, unconstrained debut album Alone. The album was a bit underexposed, but it includes some strong tracks like Alone on the rack and the Peter Hammill cover Just good friends.
That year Han was approached by Seven Day Hunt to write lyrics and record vocals for an album in the making. He joined the band, consisting of three former Edgon Heath members. Two years later the album File this dream was released on UK label Festival records. It has been regarded as one of the most mature albums of the last decade from the Dutch progressive rock scene.
During the finishing of this album Han started writing material for a next solo effort. With Dark in light (2010) Han created a very diverse but consistent record of what had become a blend of (progressive) rock, blues and singer-songwriter style songs.Featuring guest performances by Seven Day Hunt members Aldo Adema, Jaap Mulder and Carola Magermans.
Because of the successful collaboration between guitarist/producer Aldo Adema and Han on Dark in Light they decided to team up for a studio project. TumbleTown was born. The debut album Done with the coldness was released in 2013 by Freia Music. Their skills combined resulted in a beautiful studio album with prog leaning towards mainstream rock and pop.
Meanwhile Han mastered two albums by Silhouette and started working on his third solo album Lawless local heroes. In 2015 Han released his third solo album Lawless local heroes. Shortly after, Aldo and Han decided to record a second TumbleTown album. During the production of the album, Silhouette keyboardist Erik Laan joined TumbleTown as a member. And then there were three!
The Never too late (2018) was released by FREIA music and featured ten adventurous songs written by Han and powered by the solid drums of musical guest and Erik’s son, Arjan Laan (Skylake). The album was praised by most of the press.
Whilst working on the third TumbleTown album, Han released his fifth solo album Walking in Circles in June 2022. Nine new varied and immersive songs that have further evolved the musical direction taken on his previous album Esoteric Euphony.
For this album Han is accompanied by drummer Sander Zoer (Delain), Juan Ignacio Varela (Bubu) on sax and Jaap-Sip Faber on bass . Furthermore, there are additional performances by Peter H. Boer (bass), Aldo Adema (guitar, bass), Sage Tichenor (flute), Valentin Sonderegger (cello), Laura Schwarzmann (violin) and Abel Boquera (Hammond).
Another noteworthy special touch for this album is the beautiful hand-drawn cover art by Aldo Adema.
