The Ex

The Ex is back on track! And 2024 is going to be something! We’ll celebrate our 45(!) years of “forward in all directions” and very soon we will play our 2000th concert! (2000 in 45 different countries!) Back in 2019 we had an intense year. Full on playing our 27 Passports set. Festivals and tours in France, Great Britain, Spain, Italy and more. Remarkable gigs on La Reunion Island, the Victoriaville Festival in Canada, a jazz festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia and some “The Ex 40 years” festivities in France with the Ethiopians Fendika and Circus Debre Berhan. Just to mention a few amazing, super-inspiring, moments! But at the end of that year it also felt good to have a little break and practice again. Starting from scratch. Just to see where we are. Full of inspiration and ready for something new! We made 26 albums in total, but working on a new one is still the ultimate challenge. A thing we always were aware of in our long musical adventure!

But then, suddenly, in March 2020, corona erupted. All over the world. Chaos. Playing, touring, seemed not a good idea.. Our planned rehearsal break became much longer, but we weren’t panicking. Plenty of things to do! And the prospect of coming back with a brand-new set was exciting. We re-released the first 8 The Ex LP’s. Completely with all original artwork and inserts. We all four did some smaller impro gigs, recordings and cooperations. AND, the great Belgian writer Guy Peters is working on a book about The Ex. We realized it was a good time to go through our massive archive. Dozens and dozens of boxes! And some more things we didn’t have time for during our intense years and years of playing full-on music!

We did an improvised The Ex set at the Catalytic Sound Festival in the Villa in Wormer, on December 1, 2022 and it was super inspiring! And about half a year ago we felt it was really time to start comingtogether and make music again, working on brand new material. The following practice sessions exploded and soon we had around 10 song ideas. Ready to develop and fine-tune. Early December we did two try-outs at the Catalytic Festivals in Merleyn, Nijmegen and Paradiso, Amsterdam and we concluded we could start playing and touring again! From March 2024 the agenda filled up soon. Still a big, exciting musical adventure, but here we are: ready to jump on stage; ready to rock, roll and much more!!

Katherina, Arnold, Andy, Terrie.

THE EX: CV

Founded in mid 1979. Ever since independent in their own management (Stichting Ex) and own record label (Ex Records). To date around 2000 performances and some 28 albums. Concerts in North America, Russia, Canada, Ethiopia, and nearly all of Europe.

Worked with a.o. Tom Cora (USA), Brader Musiki (Kurdistan), Lanaya (Mali), Jan Mulder, Kamagurka + Herr Seele (Belgium), Chumbawamba (England), Fugazi (USA), Sonic Youth (USA), Djibril Diabate (Mali) , Konono No. 1 (Congo), Mohammed Jimmy Mohammed (Ethiopia), Getatchew Mekuria (Ethiopia), Anne-James Chaton (France), Jaap Blonk, Instant Composers Pool, Han Bennink, Ab Baars, Wolter Wierbos, Theatergroep d’Electrique, Magpie Dance Company, Tortoise (USA), Tsehaytu Beraki (Eritrea), Mats Gustafsson (Sweden), Ken Vandermark (USA), Roy Paci (Italy).

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