White Rose Transmission
Happiness At Last
In 1995 Carlo van Putten (The Convent, ex-Dead Guitars)founded White Rose Transmission together with Adrian Borland (The Sound) . The starting point was his most famous song "Winning", which can also be heard on "Happiness at last" in a completely new acoustic arrangement. Van Putten covered it at the time with The Convent and asked Borland if he agreed with the version. He was so much that he went on tour straight away and sang the piece with the German-Dutch band evening after evening. This song marked the beginning of a wonderful friendship that ended abruptly with Borland's suicide after the White Rose Transmission debut album and the masterful "700 miles of desert" in 1999. White Rose Transmission, however, continued to exist, the project became more open, the only constant and the core remained Carlo van Putten. With him musicians like Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls), Marty Wilson-Piper (The Church, Alle About Eve), Mark Burgess (The Chameleons) and Frank Weyzig (Clan Of Xymox, Born For Bliss) were involved. In addition to Kurt Schmidt (Twelve Drummers Drumming), the cast currently includes Robert Smeekes and Thomas Marcin from the Dutch band Aestrid. Van Putten regularly goes on living room tours through Europe with the latter. And so "Happiness at last" is also something like a living room concert to take away in times when such events cannot take place. An intimate experience against social distance that is so highly topical and yet timeless. A comforting companion on dull autumn mornings, when the pale sun can hardly do anything against the dewy pallor. And a soundtrack for autumn, serene but not melancholy and full of bright, mostly acoustic arrangements that flatter Carlo van Putten's voice. It sounds even warmer and more sonorous than before. Above all, however, the instrumentation leaves room where everything else would be superfluous. "Happiness at last" celebrates the moments when everything is there, but you can never be sure whether it will last - as in "Winning", this hymn of the wave rock about not being able to win. Today it sounds no less haunting than it did back then, just less aggressive. Giving up is still not an option.