Biography

A Challenge of Honour starts in 2000 when the German musician Johan König records his demo-tape and asks Peter Savelkoul to release it on his label, Stahlklang Audio. The demo-tape, ‘the right place’”, was limited to 30 copies and sold out within days. One of the buyers of this first release was a young French music lover, Phillipe, who gave the tape to a friend who had a record-company named Divine Comedy Records. The friend, Fabrice, contacted Peter and asked if he was interested to release a CD on his label. Peter was by this time already member of acoh. He asked Johan and they accepted; result: ‘Only Stones Remain’, an album which was the start of a whole series of releases. Johan decided to quit acoh to have more time for his girlfriend and other musical projects, he co-writes four songs for the debut-album and also recorded the legendary ‘Wilhelm Gustloff’ before he totally stops with the project.

Peter went on with the project, resulting in releases as the trilogy of human madness (divine comedy), a re-release of the ‘Wilhelm Gustloff’ CD (cold spring) and the great releases on the Austrian Steinklang Records label of his good friend Max Presch.

In 2005 Peter started a new label to release only material of a challenge of honour and these releases are not only vinyl releases but also CD’s and limited CDR’s.

The name of the label is VRIHASPATI RECORDINGS.

The first release has become a collaboration with the new Dutch project of acoh-livemember Irvin Getrouw entitled “Praetorio”; the theme is ‘Hadrian’s Wall’. The second was the LP version of the ‘Seven Samurai’ album which was released as a CD by Divine Comedy Records. In 2007 VRIHASPATI RECORDINGS released two releases of a challenge of honour, first the trilogy double-cd which was a re-release of the trilogy-10” series on divine comedy also including extra tracks and remixes by diverse artist, secondly the re-release of the monuments album, digitally remastered with new artwork and 3 extra songs.



Planned in the near future are a collaboration album with rasthof dachau, entitled “we march to our own drums”, and a split album on rage in eden records together with praetorio and un defi d’honneur. Also an ambient album entitled “ashigaru revealed” is planned on a Russian label and new full album for 2008.