Fotografie: Isabelle Boon
THE WARNOW | THE LIGHTSEEKERS
On our album The Endless Sea, you'll find the song THE LIGHTSEEKERS, about the sinking of the ship De Warnow. She left Schiedam's Voorhaven on March 17, 2013 with eight musicians. Shortly after crossing to England, the ship got into trouble during a storm off the English coast near Whitby. After a refurbishment, the ship left for Scotland two weeks later. Five crew members disembarked at Stonehaven. The three others set sail for Norway on April 15 to see the Northern Lights, navigating on an iPhone onto which a map of Norwegian waters was downloaded two days after departure. That is also the last traceable trace of the ship. The Warnow has not been heard from since April 17. Daniel Blokker was personal friends with some of the passengers. He was touched by the fact that three of them found their sailor's grave at the bottom of the North Sea and wrote THE LIGHTSEEKERS together with Jeroen Wessels.
A film about the Warnow's journey was released in October 2023. What has remained out of the publicity until now is the fact that the passengers recorded quite a lot on video during the first part of the journey, with the aim of later making a documentary of this and generating some income from it. With these home videos and interviews with survivors and other witnesses, filmmaker Wim van der Aar reconstructs the journey that forever changed the lives of the five returnees and we follow their search for closure.
Seven Stars Over Sicily
Seven Stars Over Sicily will take you on an adventurous trip along a continuous changing musical landscape, a collage of americana, chamber folk, surf symphonies, nu wave, southern krautrock, acoustic soul, 60’s garagerock, dirty blues and psychedelica. Also called 'maritime noir' of ’ocean disco’ by themselves. As a reference you can think of acts like Beach House, Deep Sea Arcade, A Flock Of Seagulls, The Coral, The Baltic Sea Philharmonic.
The group has built a considerable live reputation in Rotterdam and its suburbs. Whether in the renowned Jazzcafe Dizzy, the authentic Tikibar, or on a ship (V11, WIjnhaven), wherever they’re playing there’s a party goin’ on.
Seven Stars Over Sicily make music that is almost impossible to qualify, but is undeniably cool. A very American mix of folk, blues, Latin, psychedelia, surf and a handful of other genres. In the past, it sometimes yielded comparisons with Calexico, Beach House and Mark Lanegan, which also have something in them. Seven Stars Over Sicily are very much themselves (**** review The Endless Sea - Robert Haagsma - Lust For Life #115).
The Rotterdam based Seven Stars Over Sicily make music that is difficult to categorize, but which is very exciting and has a cinematic feel. Folk influences are there, but also Doors-like psychedelic rock sounds and Nick Cave atmospheres. Guitarists Conrad Freling and Jeroen Wessels repeatedly surprise by adapting themselves more and more to what the songs require with a multitude of acoustic and electric guitar sounds ( Gitarist, October 2021).
With this adventurous and regularly penetrating The Endless Sea, Seven Stars over Sicily will undoubtedly win a lot of new souls (Music That Needs Attention, October 2021).
Blokker's dark expressive, restrained vocals remind at times of Stuart Staples from Tindersticks and drag you into gloomy reflections in Ghostdancer and The Loner & The Lifeguard, an excitingly constructed epic on swirling keys. The additional strings reinforce the dramatic field of tension. [...] The closing track Across The Borderlines, a piano ballad sung together with Merle 'Mone' Sibbel with a string ensemble in the background, doesn't make you happy either, but this one immediately sticks. Listening to the dark, mysterious The Endless Sea will not leave you untouched (review The Endless Sea - Cis van Looy - Written in Music, October 2021).
The Endless Sea is a must for fans of dark pop-rock music. Think Tindersticks, Madrugada and so on (Altcountry Forum, October 2021).
The songs they recorded on their album “The Endless Sea”, the successor to debut album “And Here Comes The Night” from 2018, possess a mysterious glow and are rather soundscapes where guest musicians add sounds of violins and other string instruments to the band's sound. The band themselves describe their music as 'maritime noir' and also as 'ocean disco', two definitions that we also think we can recognize in tracks like “The Loner & The Lifeguard”, “Secret Lullaby”, “Strange Infatuation” and closing track “Across The Borderlines” where Merle 'Mone' Sibbel sings along, or on the songs “New York City” and “Pictures Of Anguish” accompanied by an up-tempo beat (review Rootstime.be, October 2021).
Met de nieuwe plaat The Endless Sea wordt de muzikale reis voortgezet, maar nu overdag, op een woelige zee met af en toe een straaltje zonlicht. Het album is op vinyl verschenen, te horen op Spotify en iTunes en de videoclip Coldness Within is te zien op YouTube.
The name of the band: Seven Stars Over Sicily is a long forgotten masterpiece by obscure folk singer John Terlazzo, whose blessing they have by the way.
Seven Stars Over Sicily heeft Rotterdam als thuishaven.
De bemanning bestaat uit:
Daniël Blokker – zang
Robin Eggers – drums
Conrad Freling – gitaar, zang
Robert Giesselbach – keyboards
Roger Groen – bas
Jeroen Wessels – gitaar, theremin