The Convent

THE CONVENT

Formed in northern Germany in the mid-1980s, The Convent have built a musical history that reaches far beyond the usual boundaries of post-punk, wave and independent rock.
At the heart of the band are Amsterdam-born singer Carlo van Putten and guitarist Jojo Brandt, whose songwriting has shaped The Convent's distinctive sound from the beginning: atmospheric guitars, strong melodies, melancholy and intensity, with an unmistakable connection to the European wave and post-punk tradition.
Two names are closely woven into the band's story: Mark Burgess of The Chameleons and the late Adrian Borland of The Sound. What began as musical admiration developed into friendship and collaboration. Burgess produced material for The Convent's debut album Counting The Stars and the complete follow-up, Tales From The Frozen Forest. He later toured with the band as their bass player.

Borland became an equally important part of The Convent's extended musical family. He joined Carlo van Putten on stage for performances of The Sound's Winning, before Carlo and Adrian went on to create White Rose Transmission together.
Released in 1994, Tales From The Frozen Forest became a defining album for The Convent. Dark, intimate and atmospheric, with lyrics in English, German and Dutch, it established a sound that was unmistakably their own.
Albums including Crashed Cars & Loveletters, Red Light Melancholy and About Kings And Queens And Stolen Bicycles… continued to broaden that sound, combining post-punk and wave influences with melodic rock, vintage electronics and increasingly expansive arrangements.
The Convent also developed an independent way of working long before it became commonplace. Through their own Red Sunshine Records, the band released music, organised tours and built an international network around their work.
Over the years, the musicians followed many other creative paths. Carlo van Putten continued White Rose Transmission and recorded four albums with Dead Guitars. Jojo Brandt worked with several bands and projects, including Days Of Sorrow, while keyboard player Stefan Bornhorst established himself in electronic music as The Silicon Scientist.
In 2018, Carlo, Jojo, Stefan and bassist Carsten Lienke joined former Sound drummer Mike Dudley to form In2thesound, performing the music of The Sound across Europe and bringing another chapter of their shared musical history full circle.
But The Convent themselves never really disappeared.
The current line-up — Carlo van Putten, Jojo Brandt, Carsten Lienke, Stefan Bornhorst and Rod Kaufmann — has remained remarkably stable for more than two decades. In 2024 the band returned with Memory Lane, a collaboration with Andreas Buchwald of Remain in Silence.

After four decades, The Convent are not interested in becoming their own tribute act. Their roots may lie in the wave and post-punk culture of the 1980s, but the songs were never intended as museum pieces.
They are still there to be played, changed, rediscovered and occasionally turned upside down.
The Convent are still moving forward — carrying forty years of music with them, rather than looking back at it.
Selected Discography
The Endless Way — Single, 1987
Kicked Out of Time — Single, 1989
Counting The Stars — 1993
Tales From The Frozen Forest — 1994
Mocha For The Lions — EP, 1995
Crashed Cars & Loveletters — 1996
For A Fistful Of Deutschmarks – A Collection Of Live Recordings 1992–1997 — 1998
Red Light Melancholy — 2001
About Kings And Queens And Stolen Bicycles… — 2002
1986–2016 — Double LP anthology, 2016
Memory Lane — Split single with Buchwald, 2024