ABOUT

"Chopin meets Pink Floyd meets Explosions In The Sky"

Neoclassical post-rockers We Stood Like Kings saw the light of day in 2011. Three albums and 230 shows all over Europe later, this 4-piece piano-based band hailing from Brussels has become a reference act in live soundtracks to silent cinema. You get the picture: We Stood Like Kings isn’t a band like any other. Since 2012 and with the utmost dedication, they breathe new life into well-chosen masterworks of the seventh art.

Three projects have shaped We Stood Like Kings’ story so far. Together, these form a vibrant trilogy portraying two empires already lost – BERLIN 1927, USSR 1926 – and a third one – USA 1982 – that seems to be running headlong towards its own destruction.

We Stood Like Kings will do anything to challenge the expected and successfully mix modern instrumental rock music with the treasures of yesterday’s cinema. Every release is another opportunity for WSLK to design new ways of blending their musical universe – now refined and textural, then epic and intense – with images of breathtaking beauty.

New perspectives unfold as universes meet.

We Stood Like Kings are s.igned to the high-standard German label Kapitän Platte, known for their releases

of Ef, Immanu El, The Hirsch Effekt.

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Lovers of instrumental rock and silent cinema, beware!

VIDEO

mUSIC

press

“We Stood Like Kings have taken post-rock

to a level we didn’t know existed.”

– Rotation 11

“Masterpiece, incredible, consuming, tumultuous, visceral, and inspiring.

How We Stood Like Kings were able to produce such an extraordinary opus is beyond me.”

– Echoes And Dust

“Chez We Stood Like Kings, l’explosion se fait toujours majestueuse.

Elle est construite dans une progression où la patience finit par céder sa place à une urgence inattendue.

Jaillissement d’émotion parfait.”

– Totoromoon

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“We Stood Like Kings thrives to become one of the most unique instrumental acts around the globe.

Their relentless use of the piano as a leading instrument is a bold achievement in the scene.”

– Post-Rock Essentials

“On USSR 1926, the highs seem higher and the lows seem lower, as the band discovers new emotional

heights and depths. We Stood Like Kings seems set for a long career of accumulating acclaim.”

– A Closer Listen

“Stomme film, puike muziek: ziedaar de tegenstelling

die de meest memorabele avond van uw week zal opleveren.”

– Humo

“USSR 1926, ein Album, das glücklich macht.”

– Deepground

pictures

USA 1982

a new soundtrack to Godfrey Reggio's movie "Koyaanisqatsi"

(released on September 22, 2017)

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 "Koyaanisqatsi attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the 'original' is the proliferation of the standardized. Copies are copies of copies. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself. Art is free. It stimulates the viewer to insert their own meaning. So in the sense of art, the meaning of 'Koyaanisqatsi' is whatever you wish to make of it. This is its power."

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— GODFREY REGGIO

projects

USSR 1926

a live soundtrack to Dziga Vertov's movie "A Sixth Part of the World"

(released on October 30, 2015)

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“The films of Dziga Vertov display a persistent fascination with travel. Movement across vast spaces is perhaps the most recurrent motif in his oeuvre, and the cine-race [kino-probeg] — a genre developed by Vertov’s group of filmmakers, the Kinoks — stands as an encompassing metaphor for Vertov’s own work. His cinematographic journeys transported viewers to the most remote as well as to the most advanced sites of the Soviet universe, creating a heterogeneous cine-world stretching from the desert to the icy tundra and featuring customs, costumes, and cultural practices unfamiliar to most of his audience.”

— OKSANA SARKISOVA

BERLIN 1927

a live soundtrack to Walther Ruttmann's movie "Die Sinfonie der Großstadt"

(released on February 15, 2014)

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“How to watch a film like 'Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis' ? It offers us a literal ‘day in the life of’, bringing us into Berlin by train as the sun rises, and following the life of the city as it wakes, goes to work through the morning and into the afternoon, moves from work to play, to sport and dancing and drinking deep into the night. It leaps swiftly from rich to poor, from man to machine and back again, from the grandeur of the city-scape to the sewers beneath, and always movement, movement in every way that can be found. Trains, crowds, spinning wheels and fairground rides, boat races, horse races, dog races, dancing and pounding machines, always we see the dynamism of a city in motion.”

— ALLAN JAMES THOMAS

SHOWS

20/03/20

Trefpunt w/ Miava
GHENT Belgium

02/05/20

USA 1982

Arts Picturehouse

CAMBRIDGE United Kingdom

03/05/20
USSR 1926
HOME
MANCHESTER United Kingdom

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14/05/20

Slow Club

FREIBURG Germany

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15/05/20

Lyon.Post

LYON France

17/05/2020
BERLIN 1927
Kino Nische
WINTERTHUR Switzerland

22/05/20
Dunk!festival
ZOTTEGEM Belgium

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29/05/20

USA 1982
L'Accordeur
SAINT-DENIS-DE-PILE France

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30/05/20

USA 1982
Festival d'Anères
ANÈRES France

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31/05/20

USA 1982
Ciné Le Méliès
PORT-DE-BOUC France

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02/06/20

USA 1982
Blah Blah
TORINO Italy