Stanton (Be) Shares "Everything Is Dusty", Final Single Before Album Release On January 16, 2026

Stanton (Be) Shares "Everything Is Dusty", Final Single Before Album Release On January 16, 2026
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​Thirteen years after their debut, Stanton is finally releasing a new album on January 16, 2026. The second single leading up to the album is “Everything Is Dusty”, a track Geert Hellings wrote for his son.

“The song is an ode to imperfection, to the small blemish, the speck of dust in your eye, that one detail that slips beyond your control. Perfection is a fiction. And realizing that is liberating,” Hellings explains.

CREDITS
Lyrics & music: Geert Hellings
Guitar, vocals, lap steel: Geert Hellings
Piano: Antoon Offeciers
Guitar: Jan Blieck
Bass: Nicolas Rombouts
Drums: Bert Huysentruyt
Mix: Nicolas Rombouts
Mastering: Jerboa Mastering
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​ABOUT THE UPCOMING ALBUM "I AM LISTENING NOW"
Thirteen years after his self-titled debut, Geert Hellings returns with a new and deeply lived-in Stanton album: "I Am Listening Now", out January 16, 2026. In a time marked by heated politics and a heating planet, Hellings seeks depth and defiance. Gritty rockers stand alongside fragile vignettes, rooted in the finest songwriting traditions.

“With this record, I’m turning a page,” Hellings says. “It takes stock of life as it stands now, after five intense years since Covid. The title track is a mantra and a plea for openness, dialogue, listening. Everyone I love plays on that song: from my children to my in-laws to my closest friends. It’s a gathering, a hymn to love as a way to give meaning to a life in a world that seems to be growing darker.”

Since the 2013 debut, Stanton’s sound has evolved from Americana and Mark Knopfler-inspired guitar work into a more personal, distilled musical language. “The first record clearly sat in an Americana sphere,” Hellings explains. “You can hear the influence of my guitar hero Mark Knopfler all over it. Ten years older, three children later, and with a backpack full of life experience,  that naturally leads to new songs.”

The refined arrangements reveal Hellings’ craft as a film composer, while his long-time collaborations with singer-songwriters like Jim White and Guido Belcanto shape the narrative quality of his lyrics. Since the pandemic, the music has taken on new depth: more personal, more text-driven, with fewer guitar solos and more space for sound and atmosphere.

With "I Am Listening Now", Stanton emerges as a band with its own unmistakable voice. The title track closes the album as a hypnotic mantra:
“Oh Love, won’t you teach me how.
Oh Love, won’t you teach me why.
Oh Love, won’t you teach me how.
Oh Love, I am listening now.”
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​ABOUT STANTON
Musician, composer and storyteller Geert Hellings has spent the past two decades establishing himself as a passionate and versatile presence in Belgium’s music and cultural landscape. With his distinctive guitar work, subtle compositions and extensive stage experience, he moves effortlessly across genres, disciplines, and generations.

As bandleader of Stanton, his musical laboratory since 2007, Hellings blends Americana, rock and roots into a compelling sound that has shared stages with The Scene, Richard Thompson and Jim White (USA). White, known from the cult documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, produced Stanton’s self-titled debut in 2013. The collaboration forged a strong musical bond and a lasting friendship. Since then, Hellings has played on several of White’s records and is the regular guitarist of his European band.

Beyond Stanton, Hellings has long been a driving force in groups such as BRZZVLL, Stef Kamil Carlens and the Gates of Eden and Eddy et les Vedettes. From 2007 to 2025, he was the steady guitarist of Guido Belcanto, touring extensively across Flanders and recording numerous studio albums. In recent years, he has also taken on vocals and lead guitar in Six Blade Knife, a band paying homage to his first guitar hero, Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

Hellings is a sought-after session musician, both live and in the studio. His guitar, banjo, lap steel and piano appear on recordings by Raymond van het Groenewoud, Stef Kamil Carlens, Helmut Lotti, Tutu Puoane, Pieter Embrechts, Het Zesde Metaal, Pascal Deweze, Gregory Frateur, Matt Watts, The Golden Glows and many others. A full discography can be found here.

His gift for narrative music has also led him to the screen. Hellings composed the soundtracks for the TV series Tytgat Chocolat (VRT, 2017) and for the feature films De Patrick (2019) and WIL (2023), both directed by acclaimed filmmaker Tim Mielants (Peaky Blinders, Small Things Like These, Steve). His score for De Patrick won Best Soundtrack at the Festival International du Film d’Aubagne (2020) and his work for WIL earned him a nomination for Best Soundtrack at the Ensors and a spot on the shortlist of the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent.

Hellings also found his way into theatre as composer and performer, notably collaborating with author Bart Van Loo on the successful production Napoleon, de schaduw van de revolutie (2016–2017). His music added depth to Van Loo’s captivating storytelling. In 2021, he toured with Bo Spaenc and Lucas Van Den Eynde in Onheil in Black Creek by the theatre collective De Kolonie. For younger audiences, he composed and performed in Het Paleis productions such as Ans en Wilma and Ans en Wilma, Gestrand.

Alongside his master’s degree in Jazz Guitar from the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, Hellings also studied Germanic Languages at the University of Antwerp. That background informs the literary sensitivity of his work, where musicality and language go hand in hand.
Geert Hellings is an artist who works with equal ease in the spotlight and behind the scenes: an unmistakable artistic presence whose work radiates authenticity, craftsmanship and a profound love of storytelling through sound and image.