Thanks to Partie de chasse, here’s an exclusive DAAU recording from their concert in Liège last October. Some photos from the same gig are here.
Partie de chasse
January 9th, 2011
A new year’s update
January 7th, 2011
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.
DAAU, in their own words
December 6th, 2010
Archipels Nitrate
December 6th, 2010
DAAU have contributed to the film soundtrack “Archipels nitrate” by Claudio Pazienza. The film actually seems to have been released in 2009, only that I’ve completely failed to mention it here! Shame on me. After a few showings at film festivals around the world, it was shown on ARTE earlier this year, but of course I’ve managed to completely miss that.
The Arenberg in Antwerp has a nice write-up about the film in French and Dutch. doku-arts.de also has an English text which says:
‘Silent planets. Planets on which life expectancy is measured in seconds… How long does an image last?’ Made for the 70th anniversary of the Cinémathèque Royale in Belgium (now named Cinematek), Claudio Pazienza’s Archipels Nitrate offers a unique and poetic tour through a film collection. An homage to its representative personalities and its pioneering curator, Jacques Ledoux, this personal selection of moments is a reflection upon the physical and psychological ephemerality of the moving image. ‘Sometimes intact, sometimes scratched, faded, almost erased. Images by the thousands that run wildly, uncontrollably, into my mind’.
Pazienza’s superb cinematic essay compiles magnificent clips of many beautifully restored films, from the early Lumière pictures (1896) to a short film by Belgium filmmaker Olivier Smolders (1997). The film is a distillation of the history of film, mixing documentary footage with moments from the great directors of cinema, from Chaplin to Fassbinder. By combining scenes from disparate times, Pazienza poses questions such as ‘Why are these images so embedded, and why do they trigger others?’
With a splendid musical score that includes compositions by John Cage, Béla Bartok, Georg Friedrich Händel, Morton Feldman, and DAAU (Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung), Archipels Nitrate is a fascinating investigation into the memories of cinema itself. Winner of the Grand Prix, Montreal Film Festival on Art.
No word on whether the band contributed original music, or whether there will be a DVD release or any more showings.
From an Istanbul shipyard to the Roppongi Hills
August 26th, 2010
The list of countries covered by the Shepherd’s Dream tour is already quite impressive:
- Belgium
- The Netherlands
- Germany
- France
- Luxembourg
- Turkey
- Germany
- Switzerland
- Austria
- Hungary
- Slovenia
Big announcement from the DAAU headquarters: Now the tour is really going to come to some far-away places, as we can add Japan and China to the list ! The quartet will be hitting Asia for a string of gigs in Tianjin, China and Tokyo, Japan on September 10 through 12.
Congratulations to the band & their management for pulling this off !
(For fans in Groningen, this unfortunately means that the concert initially planned for Sep. 9 at VERA has had to be cancelled.)
There are still some surprisingly blank spots on the map though. It’s been ages since the last gig in England, the US. Maybe some of the more knowledgable concert promoters in those countries are reading this…?
live from Istanbul
July 20th, 2010
interview with Han on progarchives.com
July 19th, 2010
Thanks to the wonderfully named forum member “toroddfuglesteg” over at www.progarchives.com; we have a great and enlightening new DAAU interview available online here.
This is really good interview especially if you don’t know the band too well: Han took some time to go way back to the band’s beginnings as teenage youngsters playing at home after school, talks a bit about the band’s episodes with major record companies, and gives some information on every album.
DAAU interview in Humo
June 20th, 2010
Istanbul show added, June 30
June 18th, 2010
As posted on Facebook, the Abendunterhaltung will travel to Istanbul on June 30 for a free show at Haliç Tersanesi. This will mark the first ever visit of DAAU in Turkey! And it looks like it’s not some dark cellar hole that they’re playing in, but actually pretty special: the concert presumably takes place in the docks at the Golden Horn.
update: according to a post on daau.com; the band will play “on a rotating stage in one of the shipyard’s pools” !
Ellen Schoenaerts concert
June 2nd, 2010
Theater Zuidpool in Antwerp on June 6 (this Saturday):
Ellen Schoenaerts and Big Band.
Check the (very classy) line-up for this concert:
LIESA VAN DER AA: viool, zang – TIJS DELBEKE: gitaar, viool, drum, zang – EPHRAIM CIELEN: gitaar, drum, zang – SIMON LENSKI: cello – BUNI LENSKI: viool – HAN STUBBE: klarinet – TOM PINTENS: klarinet – ROEL VAN CAMP: accordeon – HANNES D’ HOINE: contrabas – CRAIG WARD: gitaar
I don’t know much about her so best to check her myspace for more information about her music. Here are a couple of nice pictures from a 2009 concert of a similar line-up. And yes, that is the original four-piece DAAU in there!
Maybe it’s going to sound like this.