USA 1982 a live soundtrack to Godfrey Reggio's movie "Koyaanisqatsi" by We Stood Like Kings

Koyaanisqatsi, 1982, Dir. Godfrey Reggio, 87 min.
Music composed and performed by: We Stood Like Kings - piano-driven post-rock on silent movies with Judith Hoorens,
Colin Delloye, Mathieu Waterkeyn, Philip Bolten.

"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." GODFREY REGGIO

Neoclassical post-rockers We Stood Like Kings saw the light of day in 2011. Half a decade and 120 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. Signed to the high-standard German label Kapitän Platte – known for their releases of Ef, Immanu El, The Hirsch Effekt –, We Stood Like Kings already recorded two full-length albums both on vinyl and CD, with a third opus coming up mid-2017.

​Lovers of instrumental rock and silent cinema, beware!