Kong is back with first new album since 2014: ‘Traders Of Truth’
The Dutch act Kong is back with an all new album, “Traders Of Truth”, their first full album since “Stern” released in 2014.
The album contains 11 (almost entirely) instrumental tracks featuring Kong’s signature mix of metal, prog, dance, industrial and ambient ingredients. The material for this release has been recorded over a period of two years in a basement and two attics in Amsterdam and a former cloister in Amersfoort. Dag Erik Nygaard (Abbath, The Gathering, Ribozyme) mixed the album in Bergen, Norway.
Here’s the new album.
About Kong
Kong is an Amsterdam-based band whose music is nearly all instrumental, with the only vocals being an eclectic blend of sampling. The band takes a quadrophonic approach to their shows with live performances being played in a quadraphonic setup, with each band member having his/her own independent stage and PA system. If you have seen them live, it’s for sure a special experience.
The band was formed in 1988 by guitarist/synth programmer Dirk de Vries, guitarist Aldo Sprenger, bassist/synth programmer Mark Drillich, and drummer Rob Smits. The band released their debut album “Mute Poet Vocalizer” in 1990 and started touring across Europe. Kong’s second album “Phlegm” was released in 1992 and contains the band’s best-known song “Stockhouse”.
The band released the follow-up to “Phlegm”, “Push Comes To Shove”, in 1995. Shortly after the release, founding members Sprenger and Smits left the band and were replaced by guitarist Marieke Verdonk and drummer Rob Snijders. With this lineup, Kong recorded the album “Earmined”; their first album to be released by Roadrunner Records. Snijders left in 1998, and drumming duties for 1999’s “Freakcontrol” album were split between new drummer Klaas Broekema and former member Rob Smits.
After touring in support of “Freakcontrol”, the band decided to take an “open-ended sabbatical” and virtually disbanded.
Seven years later the band was revived by Drillich, and completed by guitarist Tijs Keverkamp, guitarist/synth operator David Kox, and drummer Mandy Hopman. In 2009 the album “What It Seems Is What You Get” was released by the band’s own label Kongenial. The year after the album “Merchants Of Air” was released (2012) Hopman left Kong and was succeeded by Oscar Alblas. 2014 saw Kong’s third album since their revival, being released, entitled “Stern”. An EP with rerecorded songs from 1992’s “Phlegm” was released in 2020, titled “Phlegmatism”.
Kong’s albums from the 1990s and early 2000s have long been out of print, but are available digitally from the band’s Bandcamp page.
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Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!
