The Last Dance Kickstarter

HOORAY! Folk Americana Family Band, The Hollands! are back in the studio, recording, The Last Dance, slated for release Sept 2018.

As a family and as a band, we have been following our calling to be conduits of creativity and kindness for nearly a decade and it is our greatest honor and privilege to share “The Last Dance,” our 4th full-length album.

The name is no coincidence, with the younger Hollands! beginning to launch out on their own, the name not only ties all of the lyrical themes together on the album but resonates with this season in our lives.

The Last Dance is our most diverse and comprehensive album thus far. The album comprises of twelve songs, written over the last five years featuring stories of true love, life and death, family, a sense of home or safety, and more love. The final track is the infamous Celtic song we play at the end of most of our performances, “The Blessing”, which was written by our mate, Sammy Horner.

Recorded over 7 days in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia with recording engineer, Chris Gillespie at his off-grid, solar powered, Blue Sky Recording Studios.

The musicality of The Last Dance holds to the essence of The Hollands! Folk Americana sound with beautifully woven harmonies and core instrumentation of Guitar, Cajon, Mandolin, Banjo, Piano, and Ukulele. However, in true Holland fashion, we’ve invited an all-star cast to join us on this album!

Let us introduce our kinfolk,

The Players:

Our dear friend and famed blues guitarist, Cameron Henderson added a few licks on the Gretsch hollow body, giving a few tracks that extra dose of effervescence

 

Our recording engineer, Indie Singer/Songwriter, Chris Gillespie set the tone on the Bass and added a bit of sunshine on the Dobro

 

Colleen Davick has showcased on three of The Hollands! albums and this time is no exception. Colleen adds her fine Penny Whistle expertise on The Blessing

 

Jeffrey Niemeier has toured with us on and off over the last three years. This is his 700th recording and we are very excited to have his fireball fiddling on The Last Dance. Photo by Adrianne Adelle

 

Composer and long time friend, Jeff Kurtenacker laid down an epic Hammond Organ track on one of the songs.

 

One of our favorite drummers of all time, Jason Torrens (of Cisco Caesar) added his drumming magic to The River and John Brown

Our visual artist:

Dalia Milan has had the fortune of being mentored by parents, John and Elli Milan, of Milan Art Institute. At 14, she has found her own unique voice among those in the world of fine art. We’re excited to partner with this young prodigy on The Last Dance

And YOU!

As you can see, we’ve assembled an amazing team of collaborators to make this project a success and our desire is to be able to compensate those artists for helping us fulfill our vision for The Last Dance.

This is where you are invited to join the fun! Your Pre-order and contributions not only help The Hollands! create a legacy through music but also supports a village of artists. You can do this by clicking HERE.

Our goal is to raise $6,700 USD. This will cover all of our basic recording/production/printing costs and allow us to care for those who have contributed.

Bringing something new and creative into the world is a deeply vulnerable thing to do, let alone to ask people to notice it, evaluate it, or pay for it. So, thank you for taking the time to consider partnering with us on the most important record of our career to date. We could not do this without you!

Love,

The Hollands!

 

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Phoenix Arts and Community

Phoenix hasn’t also been know for the arts but over the past few years the downtown district has done so much to encourage the arts. There is still work to be done, specially in The Zone, which we discovered last time around. However, we meet a community that sites just a few blocks from the desolate streets and offers a constant peaceful and creative presence. We meet Ryan Thurman through our gracious host family, The Skeens and visited his A2J community one afternoon. We were inspired by the communities commitment to their community and to each other. We heard stories of struggles and redemption in the neighborhood. One story included a woman who had been homeless for a time and found her way off of the streets into the A2J community and know offers her gift of hospitality behind the prayer house. We heard about the longing for more families to move into the neighborhood, for a deeper connection with the greater body. We immediately thought of our friends in Oakland at New Hope and our friends, in Omaha at InCommon and began to tell their story. There is something encouraging knowing that there is a global/local community out there. We’ll be thinking about them as we make our way, and encouraging folks to consider hanging with these kinfolk for a while.

Craig, Ryan and Jeff

A2J Prayer house

Visiting the A2J community

We were also able to connect with a number of aspiring and professional visual artists at the Artistree Arts Conference which we offered our Songwriting Workshop, our Swimming Upstream Workshop and a performance. Our kids were able to take advantage of the sketching, journaling and graphic arts workshops offered by other practitioners.  Joel Pritchard spearheaded the event. We met Joel through Steve, with Hope thru Art and are excited to announce that Joel will be doing all of the art and design on our upcoming album. We’ll keep you posted on his work.

Artistree Arts Conference 2013

Songwriting Workshop

Art Journaling Workshop

Graphic Design Workshop

While at Artistree we meet John and Elli Milan, world renowned oil painters. And are especially unique in that the Milans create their paintings together. Although John and Elli are both accomplished artists on their own, their collaborations bring out a side of their work that neither could reach by themselves.  The couple says that the Spirit of God inspires their work and allows them to create together and maintain a unified vision.  The end result is aggressive and spontaneous layers of paint which create a bright and playful scenario that is interwoven with hints of narrative.  We were invited out to the Milan farm and studio in Queen Creek, AZ for lunch and had an encouraging visit, learning about their faith journey finding their purpose in creating together. We even saw the beginnings of a painting that was inspired by our album, Ashes to Beauty. We meet two of their four children, who are quite the artists in their own rite. We enjoyed the horses, chickens, dogs and cats. It was energizing to meet a family committed to one another and to creating together.

The Milan’s

Milan Studio

Work in progress

Work in Progress

Beautiful Creation

Inspiration

Inspiration

Inspiration

Inspiration

New Album in the Works

The life changes we have made over this past year have been so mind altering and soul stretching. It’s been a process to digest it all but over the last few weeks we have put our minds and efforts into writing songs. We hope to record these new songs this December in Portland, OR with David Fuller. Looking to have it available Spring 2013.

Crux of the Album:

There is a great love and purpose for us that is worked out in the messes, storms, blue skies, daily work, and dreams of our common lives.  This album gives narrative shape to actual people and circumstances in their dealings with God, each other and the inner workings within themselves.

Themes: Community, Common Lives, Storms, Injustice, Faithfulness, Long-Suffering, Circle, History, Pastoral, Poetry, Kingdom, Voyage.

We’ve decided to redo Old Man’s Town from our latest album, ‘Ashes to Beauty’ and feature it on this upcoming album. It’s a song that has aged well and our hope is to really allow the energy that has been building in that song to have a second chance to impact.

We’ve also been working to incorporate the unified sound that has developed in us as a family, not just a duo. Over the last two years we’ve performed as a family 355 times. There is a solidity that has developed and we are looking to incorporate that into this album. So, although we will still have room for guest appearance’s, on this recording we will feature “The Hollands!” as a band and as a family, including musical parts and songs that have been written by our children, songs like “Lanie Done Did” written by Graciana Holland.

Here is an excerpt from that song:

“Just about 26 seconds ago/Lanie done something bad/That time that time that time/Was all it took to make him mad/And the waves came down/Like an earthquake ready to rumble/Rolling round, Lanie, done did stumble”