Burtis Asla is
Gert Cools		Guitar & Keyboard (also Krakow)
Johan Ivens		Guitar
Herbert Claes		Bass
Bart Ivens		Drums (also Krakow)
The start of Burtis Asla is a story of alteration and liberation. Breaking with the past and building up the future. Opening ears, eyes and mind again to fulfill the inner urge of making music from the heart. March 2004. After playing together for years as Honor Blackmann the band, founded by Gert Cools, Johan Ivens, Herbert Claes and Bart Ivens, felt stucked in their own music. Although all four of them still had that fire to make music burning inside, no new songs were written and even playing wasn’t fun anymore. Going on like that was useless. A decision had to be made. Instead of breaking apart and go seperate ways, the band decided to start from scratch again. All existing songs, together with the ideas of what a Honor Blackmann song had to be, were put aside. It was time for something different, without interference of what has been done before. A drastic decision, but later on it turned out that this was the right step to get the band back on track. Liberated, with an open mind and fresh ears they started working together again to satisfy their hunger for something new. As soon as the first songs got moulded it became clear that the music would be full of atmosphere, rather cinematic, sometimes fragile emotional, other times loud and aggressive. The new approach involved a new colour of sound. A sound that would go much wider than before. A range from gentle, warm, clean tones to raucous, agressive, distorted walls of noise had to be reached. So equipment got changed to serve the variety of emotions in the songs better. Now the pieces started to fit, the enegry was back and it was fun playing again, it became time to get rid of the last reminder of the band’s futile period: the band’s name. To emphasize the new start and clarify the different direction, the band decided it would be better to change name. So Honor Blackmann got burried and Burtis Asla arised. From now on the band could fully focus on the future. Enough time had been wasted. Reliefed and full of inspiration they worked on. In november 2004 the band went into the studio to record some of the new songs. Thanks to Bart and Majorie from starturn studios who made them sounding extremely well, the band decided to record more songs than originally planned and to release the first Burtis Asla album on it’s own. On march 19th 2005, a year after the big turn, Burtis Asla presented the album live for a selected audiance. Both concert as album were highly appreciated. Hans van der Linden, from the music site kindamuzik, even admitted the album in his personal top five of new releases. Soon bookings followed and the band played as support act for Quasi (US). But the milestone was Burtis Asla’s support act for Mono (jap) at Muziekodroom on april 29th. With a show full of atmosphere, emotions and mercilessly powerfull outbursts, the band convinced the audiance and present press. Watchfull to not step in the same trap again, the band now continues to work on what they want Burtis Asla to be: a strong live reputation band with songs balancing between sensitive melodies and agressive explosions, sometimes quiet and fragile other times loud and vigorous, but always full of atmosphere. A Burtis Asla song has to be felt, it has to touch, overwhelm and comfort. It can knock you down but it will always catch you up again. Burtis Asla is like life: you know what you have for the moment, but you don’t know what to expect behind the next corner. So be careful!