Album Notes

Biography Ulysses - last updated 2007 July 21th

Ulysses is a Dutch symphonic progressive rockband initiated back in December 1998 by Ron Mozer, and Sylvester Vogelenzang de Jong. They decided to form a band in which they could express their musical ideas. In the first months additional musicians were added to the line up to complete the band to a five-piece band. After some line-up changes the band has a steady line-up since May 2001.

Right from the start Ulysses focussed on writing material and trying to develop an own distinctive sound.
After months and months of jamming and writing plans were made to record a CDemo before the end of 2001. In first instance it should have been a low profile and low budget demo, but as the band was recording, the five band members decided to make it a real professional CDemo. The CDemo was recorded on September 30th and mixed the day after, on October 1st. Meanwhile Sylvester had a idea for the cover design, for this design he needed permission to use the image of a painting of Dutch surrealistic painter Hans Kanters. After contacting the painter the band got exclusive permission to use excerpts of the painting for the cover design. In October 2001 the band gave the master cd together with the cd-cover design to a production company. The CDemo "Eclectic" was officially released on December 8th 2001.

Since the release of the Cdemo, Ulysses concentrated on the promotion for "eclectic" and performed at some festivals, radio shows and had quite some reviews in all kinds of magazines. September 2002 Ulysses decided to take a pause to use the time to work on the new album. Since the release of the CDemo some labels were interested and negotiations started with several labels. After some months of talks it got clear to the band members that independence was very important. In order to release an album and keep independent they started their own production company "Eclectic Productions". On this "label" they were going to release the debut album "Symbioses". For the distribution of the upcoming album they signed a distribution deal with CDistributions, a company who is specialised in distribution of progressive rock and symphonic music.

In March and April of 2003 Ulysses spent some time in the Excess studios in Rotterdam to record the long awaited debut album. The album was co-produced together with Hans Pieters who worked together with bands as Elegy, Sinister, After Forever and many others. Especially the diversity of bands that he worked with had a positive influence on the end result. Also this time Ulysses realised a co-operation with artist Hans Kanters for the artwork of the album. At the end of April Ulysses finished the work on the album and the album was officially released 28th April. Since the release the band has done alot of promotional work and interviews. "Symbioses" received good reviews world wide and expectations for a new album are quite high.

At the end of October 2003 Ulysses decided to split with vocalist Raymond. Due to a different view on the artistic future of the band it seemed the best choice to start auditions for a new vocalist. In January 2004 the band found themselves a new vocalist in the person of Michael Hos. The following months were used for promoting the album by means of live shows, radio shows and interviews.
In 2005 Bassplayer René Schippers decided to leave the band because he couldn't combine the band with his private life. Casper Kroon was found as his replacement.

Soon after the arrival of Casper the band decided to stop touring and committed all the time in writing and arranging of new material. This resulted in enough material for a new album. In the spring of 2007 Ulysses started with the recordings of some demos and finally started on the album recordings. The band has recorded 7 album tracks. The new album 'the gift of tears' will probably see the daylight around the November 2008.

Check out the bands website for updates and sneakpreviews..

Ulysses on Symbioses is :

Guitar - Sylvester Vogelenzang de Jong
Synths - Ron Mozer
Bass - René Schippers
Drums - René van Haaren
Vocal - Raymond Jansen

Ulysses post symbioses is:

Guitar - Sylvester Vogelenzang de Jong
Synths - Ron Mozer
Bass - Casper Kroon
Drums - René van Haaren
Vocal Michael Hos