Dutch darkwave duo Bragolin will play their first concerts in North America this autumn. The North American Hope Tour runs 30 dates, opening 3 September at X-Ray Arcade in the Milwaukee area and closing 11 October at The Whittier in Tulsa, with Carrellee on every date. The run follows the band’s third album, I Don’t Like What It Does To Me, released on 27 March 2026 through Young And Cold Records.

Bragolin have played more than one hundred shows across Europe and Latin America since 2013. None of them were on the North American continent.

Edwin van der Velde, who founded the project and writes its material, said the demand had been there for years:

“We have had a following in North America for a long time, and the requests for us to come over have gone unanswered for many years. I’m mainly looking forward to finally meeting those fans who have been following us from the beginning and hopefully giving them the show they’ve been waiting for.”

The routing moves from the Midwest into Ontario and Quebec, then the Northeast, the South and Texas. Two festival slots sit inside the run: Cold Waves in Chicago on 24 September, and the Milwaukee opener. The duo return to Europe on 31 October in Utrecht for a second leg that ends 19 December in Brussels, then travel to São Paulo and Santiago in February 2027. A West Coast tour is planned for early 2027 with dates not yet announced.

Tour dates for Bragolin in North America

• 3 September – Milwaukee, WI, United States – X-Ray Arcade
• 4 September – Madison, WI, United States – Memorial Union Terrace
• 5 September – Minneapolis, MN, United States – Mortimer’s
• 6 September – Davenport, IA, United States – Raccoon Motel
• 9 September – Grand Rapids, MI, United States – The Pyramid Scheme
• 10 September – Detroit, MI, United States – Small’s
• 11 September – Windsor, ON, Canada – Meteor
• 12 September – Montreal, QC, Canada – P’tit Ours
• 13 September – Ottawa, ON, Canada – Dominion Tavern
• 15 September – Rochester, NY, United States – Record Archive
• 16 September – Providence, RI, United States – The Parlour
• 17 September – New Paltz, NY, United States – Scry Chapelle
• 18 September – New York City, NY, United States – Market Hotel
• 19 September – Philadelphia, PA, United States – Nikki Lopez
• 20 September – Baltimore, MD, United States – Metro Baltimore
• 22 September – Cincinnati, OH, United States – Northside Tavern
• 24 September – Chicago, IL, United States – Cold Waves Festival
• 25 September – Indianapolis, IN, United States – The 808
• 26 September – Columbus, OH, United States – The Summit Music Hall
• 27 September – Pittsburgh, PA, United States – Poetry Lounge
• 30 September – Richmond, VA, United States – Fallout
• 1 October – Raleigh, NC, United States – Chapel of Bones
• 2 October – Asheville, NC, United States – Static Age Records
• 3 October – Atlanta, GA, United States – The Masquerade
• 4 October – New Orleans, LA, United States – The Crypt
• 7 October – Houston, TX, United States – Black Magic Social Club
• 8 October – Austin, TX, United States – Elysium
• 9 October – San Antonio, TX, United States – Paper Tiger
• 10 October – Denton, TX, United States – Rubber Gloves
• 11 October – Tulsa, OK, United States – The Whittier

European and Latin American dates

• 15 August – Münster, Germany – Tanz der Vampire Dark Summer Festival
• 31 October – Utrecht, Netherlands – ACU
• 6 November – Venlo, Netherlands – Grenswerk
• 7 November – Arnhem, Netherlands – Willemeen
• 12 November – Glasgow, United Kingdom – Ivory Blacks
• 14 November – Manchester, United Kingdom – Kable
• 15 November – London, United Kingdom – Barfly
• 19 November – Berlin, Germany – Urban Spree
• 21 November – Weißenhäuser Strand, Germany – Plage Noire Festival
• 25 November – Graz, Austria – PPC
• 26 November – Budapest, Hungary – Robot
• 28 November – Augsburg, Germany – Rockfabrik
• 29 November – Cologne, Germany – Blue Shell
• 1 December – Karlsruhe, Germany – Stadtmitte
• 3 December – Rüsselsheim, Germany – Das Rind
• 5 December – Bremen, Germany – Lila Eule
• 6 December – Bielefeld, Germany – Movie
• 8 December – Prague, Czech Republic – Café V lese
• 9 December – Brno, Czech Republic – ArtBar Druhý Pád
• 11 December – Barcelona, Spain – Sala Wolf
• 12 December – Madrid, Spain – Sala Nazca
• 17 December – Paris, France – Le Chinois
• 19 December – Brussels, Belgium – mOtown Concerts
• 6 February 2027 – São Paulo, Brazil – Madame
• 7 February 2027 – Santiago, Chile – Club Freedom

Tickets and further information are listed on the Bragolin official website.

The album behind the tour: ‘I Don’t Like What It Does To Me’

“I Don’t Like What It Does To Me” runs eight tracks and keeps the Bass VI, organ tones and dance rhythms that have carried Bragolin since the start, while adding waterphone, strings, seagull field recordings and ocean textures synthesised on a Korg MS-20. Carrellee sings on the duet “Feel This Flame Unfold”. The closing piece “I Run and Hide” contains no guitar at all: van der Velde assembled the whole arrangement from layered Clavinet parts run through his Bass VI signal chain.

Tracklist: “Not All Are Real”, “I Run and Hide”, “Feel This Flame Unfold (ft. Carrellee)”, “Tar With Salt Foam”, “I Salute You Ancient Ocean”, “I Don’t Like What It Does to Me”, “This Presence Like a Breeze”, “In This Lightless Hall”.

About Bragolin

Bragolin began in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 2013, when Edwin van der Velde moved a guitar riff written for his Dutch-language project Zwarte Poëzie onto a newly bought Bass VI. The instrument changed the riff and the direction of the work with it. That piece became “Into Those Woods”, the first Bragolin song and the centrepiece of the 2018 debut album “I Saw Nothing Good So I Left”, which has since been repressed six times on vinyl.

Van der Velde widened the project in 2019 with “Let Out The Noise Inside”, a full-album collaboration with Adam Tristar that brought more electronic production into the sound. Synth player Edwin Daatselaar joined in 2020 and completed the current live duo; both musicians also play in Zwarte Poëzie. The pair have since performed at Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Amphi Festival, Cold Hearted Festival, Extramuralhas, Kalabalik and, twice, at Grauzone in The Hague, most recently as a last-minute replacement announced three days before the 2026 edition. Bragolin also feature on “As Trees Do Fall”, a track from Kill Shelter – Damage, and shared a Paris bill with Ezekiel Gauthier at the Tech Noire ninth anniversary in February 2026.

Van der Velde has described the Dutch wave scene’s growth over the past decade in concrete terms, naming Grauzone, Wavefest and Momentum as festivals of international standard and pointing to Adam Tristar, Raderkraft, Lifeless Past, De Ambassade, Silent Runners, Camy Huot and Pol as acts finding audiences outside the country. A decade ago, he noted, the scene was known internationally mainly through Clan Of Xymox.

Streaming has run ahead of the band’s touring. “Into Those Woods” passed ten million streams on the strength of its baritone hook, and “This Grotesque Dance” found a second audience on TikTok seven years after release, overtaking it as Bragolin’s most-streamed song. Both reached North American listeners long before the duo could follow. The North American Hope Tour closes that gap in September.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

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!

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