Since the issue of their debut single Release" in 1999, Arsenal have published six albums, collaborating with a wide range of international singers and musicians including Mike Ladd, Shawn Smith, John Garcia, Grant Hart, and Johnny Whitney.
[1] Taking their name from a World War II weapons depository located next to their studio in Brussels, Belgium, Hendrik Willemyns and John Roan started out with their debut EP Release issued in 1999 on the Antwerp-based Wally's Groove World label and subsequently licensed by the Ibiza label Café del Mar for their Chill-Out House compilation.
It featured a cast of vocal collaborators from around the world including Aaron Perrino from the Boston band The Sheila Divine, Puerto Rican singer Gabriel Rios, Italo-Belgian singer Domenico Vaccaro, Brazilian Mario Vitalino dos Santos, and Chinese rapper Chi Zang.
Following the success of Outsides, Willemyns and Roan traveled to Norway to work in isolation (‘And to get rid of the sunny vibes’, according to Willemyns), and as on their previous albums, they featured a wide range of collaborators (including Grant Hart of Hüsker Dü, Shawn Smith of Brad and Pigeonhed, Mike Ladd, Cortney Tidwell, and John Garcia from Kyuss) on their next record, Lotuk.
[citation needed] As with Outsides, Lotuk was accompanied by a documentary on DVD, filmed and edited by Willemyns, that follows the band on their road trip across the United States to meet up with Shawn Smith, John Garcia, Cortney Tidwell, and Grant Hart.
In six episodes, six books were featured: Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Solaris by Stanislaw Lem, Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño, and Burmese Days by George Orwell.
The album also featured new collaborators such as Johnny Whitney (from The Blood Brothers and Jaguar Love), Mélanie Pain, and Belgian performance artist Depotax, and ranged in style from beatless ambient tracks, house music, shoegaze, to rock.
DJ Mag praised the single "One Day at a Time": "Arsenal are a big deal in Europe: this has clearly nothing to do with the North London football team.
Next to Hendrik Willemyns and John Roan, Arsenal’s live band consists of Leonie Gysel, Mirko Banovic, Dirk Loots, Matthias Bastiaens, and Jan Roelkens.