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When DAAU played at the Duif church in Amsterdam last month, it might have been the conclusion of their “Shepherd’s Dream” tour. We don’t know for sure, but at present no concerts are officially announced until September.

But there are a few postings around the net that suggest that DAAU will return to the stage this fall to play some concerts with GEM – that is short for Grupo experimental de Música. GEM is coming over to Antwerp for a residency at the Singel and possibly some recordings with DAAU. The press text promises an amalgam of Brazilian and Belgian folk music, and points out that Fernando Sardo builds his own instruments and installations with unusual materials.

Now I’m thinking that a collaboration between these guys and DAAU could lead to something quite interesting – and possibly even more demanding of the average music listener than Shepherd’s Dream. Will we see the Anarchists move up to the avantgarde of experimental noise music? The answer probably won’t be given until autumn, when the collaborative project plays two festival dates in Gent and Antwerp. I’ll try to be there.

Dates according to toutpartout:

* 10/09/11: Stad als Podium, Philharmonie Haarlem (NL) (DAAU)

* 27/10/11: Vooruit – Gent (B) (Europalia Brasil) – Ferdando Sardo’s GEM vs. DAAU

* 04/11/11: Vamos Brasil! @ De Singel – Antwerpen (B) – Ferdando Sardo’s GEM vs. DAAU

Watch a video of GEM performing live below.

I recently came across this new band from Antwerp called Winther. Fronted by singer Wolfram Ghesquière, the band also includes bassist Dries Laheye and Frederik Meulyzer on drums – and DAAU founding member Buni Lenski on violin. Indeed, that is unmistakably Buni on the promo pictures, which make it clear that the band picked their name for a good reason…

The music could be described as calm, laid-back, soulful and slightly melancholic pop, with the occasional touch of weirdness. More of that, please, and maybe a little less restraint..

You can stream a couple of songs at the band’s vi.be site, or view a couple of videos – starting with Buni keeping his fingers warm on a winter day in Belgium.

An early gig by only Wolfram & Buni at Antwerp’s Salle Jeanne. Buni singing back-up through the violin microphone is a great sight.

But there’s more! At the recent gig in Rotterdam, Simon Lenski also played with Sir Ian, formerly of Mono. Youtube evidence below. (For the record, Simon didn’t play the cello parts on Sir Ian’s album Apathology – those were by Milena Eva, who is on the left.)

To kick off the new year, one good piece of news is that DAAU has been nominated for a MIA in the ‘best artwork’ category, obviously for the lovely packaging of the “Shepherd’s Dream” album. And rightfully so. “MIA” is short for the Flamish Music Industry Awards and the award ceremony is taking place right now.

The touring continues relentlessly early on in the year, with concerts around Belgium and the Netherlands starting in Eeklo next week.

And lastly, a very happy new year to all of you! Here’s to a lot more good music in 2011.

There is an article and interview with DAAU in today’s De Standaard.

Avid followers of this site will not find too much new information there, but it is a nice read. The idea of listening to a concert while lying down on a mattress appeals to me…

Updated May 4th

Reviews of the new album are starting to come in, and I’ll link to them as they become available online. They are mostly very favorable, and rightly so !

• kwadratuur.be (3.5/5 stars)
• darkentries.be (8/10 stars)
• rifraf has a review on page 22. Again the free music mag gives a very favorable review to the extent of associating DAAU with contemporary composers and even going so far as to label them a crossing between Eleni Karaindrou en Nino Rota (!).
• cuttingedge.be, 4/5 stars
• psychemusic.org, 4 stars
• The New Music Review, 4 stars

Feel free to send me more if you come across them…

A short interview with Han about The Shepherd’s Dream, on occasion of the Kleppersfestival in Antwerp:

Het is een plaat waarin we de stilte en de traagheid opzoeken. Waarin we met kleine details in onze sound het verhaal proberen te vertellen. Meer dan in volume of snelheid. We proberen het echt subtiel aan te pakken. (…)

We zijn gewoon zonder vooropgezet plan gedurende enkele maanden muziek beginnen maken in improvatiesessies. Die muziek had volgens ons iets pastoraal. Het heeft bijna een naïef utopisch karakter waarin we een idyllisch landschap proberen te creëren. De pastorale muziek zoals Beethoven’s Pastorale is ook een beetje inspiratie geweest.

Which translates roughly to the following: The band were aiming at a quieter, slower sound and looking for a way to relate a story through variation of small details rather than volume or tempo. The music has the character of an almost utopian, idyllic landscape.

Quite an apt characterization of the album’s mood, which I like more every time I listen to it (& so does everybody else I’ve played it to).

As of today, the new DAAU album is available for pre-order from the Radical Duke.

And it’s a beauty!

Only five long tracks this time. You can listen to a track at the Radical Duke site.

01 – A Matter Of Time
02 – Out Of The Woods
03 – Girl, Swimming
04 – Into The Wild
05 – Visions Of Arcadia (the final protest)

update: the link to buy the album was taken offline again, but I’m told it will be back very soon.

Last-minute notice for people closer to the Belgian capital than I am: DAAU will play a try-out gig in Brussels this Sunday at Bar des Clandestins.

In other news, the new album title has been confirmed to be “The Shepherd’s Dream“, and to mark the occasion the band’s site is hiding behind construction planks, no doubt soon to be back with more information.

Tour dates come trickling in by the day. France concerts will be in March, Austria and Switzerland are for May.

It’s finally ready. Welcome to the all-new and still unofficial DAAU page. Finally revamped and ready! This will be the place for the latest news and gossip from the DAAU world as it extends into 2010 and beyond, with a new album and hopefully many shows to come.

And just in case things should get boring, there is still a nice long backlog of archival material waiting to be published. From time to time I will try to pull a rabbit out of the hat and present you with something unexpected from, say, 1998 or something.

If you look closer you’ll see that I’ve made the switch to a blog-based format. The days of hand-crafted HTML are finally over once and for all, which might just mean I’m getting lazy. Otherwise, it’s probably not a big deal for you but it is for me.

Looking for the page you used to see here? The old news page is still available here. (If you hate web sites that just forget all their old content whenever the design changes… so do I.)