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dEUS

New: dEUS "No more Loud Music"
After a long silence, dEUS returns with a new single, and a compilation to go with that. Just check out this tracklist: Suds & Soda, Via, Hotellounge, Theme From Turnpike, Little Arithmetics, Roses, Fell Off The Floor Man, Instant Street,
Sister Dew, The Ideal Crash, Nothing Really Ends. Need I say more?
>>> Buy this CD at Proxis <<<
>>> only 781 Bfr - 19,62 Euro - 17.33$ (on Nov 18, 2001) <<<

dEUS are an Antwerp-based band who take on the world, armed with a suitcase full of Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Pixies and Radiohead. Their music is never straightforward, always with a twist that makes it stand out of the ordinary, nice melodies flirting with the experimental. Although gaining popularity on the post-Nirvana grunge wave across the world, they have a lot more to offer than the typical loud-quiet-loud song-structures which have become so typical for this scene. With their moody frontman and video-artist Tom Barman, their live concerts range from the clumsy and annoying to the brilliant and ingenious.

 
Songs
 

from "Humo's Rock Rally" (1992)
"Song for a Jacket"
63 sec. - 124 Kb.
song : Tom Barman

from "Worst Case Scenario" (1994)

"Suds & Soda"
60 sec. - 118 Kb.
song : dEUS, Barman, Carlens

"Via"
49,4 sec. - 97 Kb.
song : Barman, Meyers

"Hotellounge (death of me)"
71,7 sec. - 140 Kb.
song : Barman, Trouvé

Produced : Vermeersch & Vervloesem.
Year : 1994
Record co. : Island

from "IABUTS" (1996)

"Fell off the floor, man"
51 sec. - 102 Kb.

"Theme From Turnpike"
1 min 12 sec. - 141 Kb.

"Little Arithmetics"
59 sec. - 118 Kb.

Produced : E. D. Feldman.
Year : 1996
Record co. : Island

from "TIC" (1999)

"Instant Street"
1 min 25 sec. - 167 Kb.

"Sister Dew"
1 min 1 sec. - 120 Kb.

"The Ideal Crash"
1 min 7 sec. - 132 Kb.

Produced : David Bottrill.
Year : 1999
Record co. : Island

"Nothing Really Ends"
1 min 15 sec. - 155 Kb.
Year : 2001
Record co. : Universal

 
   
 

In 1992, the band emerged on the scene for the first time during the Rock Rally. dEUS got to the final (with Mercelis, Nemo, The Beautiful Babies, Orgasmaddix, Charlie 45 ...), but very few of the jurors liked the band at that stage. Frank Van Der Linden, the bald-headed singer of De Mens, still boasts the fact he was the first to spot their talent.

Their debut came a year later, with the short E.P. Zea (own release). The review in Humo in 1993 went as follows : "Zea by the Antwerp group dEUS is a three song E.P. which in a time of quadruple CD-boxes, bonus tracks and free unplugged versions, has a lot of appeal to us. Not because of it's modest size but in spite of. It's a record that tastes like mòre ... It's been a century since a Belgian record has gotten to this level. You know enough."

 

dEUS was one of the few Belgian groups who managed to get an international record deal (with Island) even before they were known in Belgium other than by a small group of followers. Their debut album "Worst case scenario", produced by the weirdo's of X-legged Sally, got great reviews all over the world and made them one of the bigger groups on the alternative music scene.

Or as David Roberts of Q-magazine put it in a review of "Worst Case Scenario" : "This five-piece rock outfit from Belgium are destined either to become the trendiest toast of 1994 or forgotten by the year's end as the naffest thing to come out of their homeland since Plastic Bertrand. With an erratic musical identity located somewhere between John Cale, Captain Beefheart and Sonic Youth and a 15-track debut album which veers effortlessly from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again, they have a truly unique appeal. That this appeal is often so powerful is thanks to a fresh, uninhibited approach to playing and arrangements, and a core of stunning songs ranging from the delicately acoustic, soul-twisting Right As Rain to the clattering, chaotically charismatic Suds & Soda. They get too way out weird occasionally, as on the erratic, art-rock meandering of Morticia's Chair, but never go so far that they can't be saved by a track like the album's best, the mesmeric, alternately tense and soaring Hotel Lounge. And they sing in English too."

The follow-up to Worst Case Scenario, "My Sister=My clock" was a much more experimental, weird and inaccessible album. The group was going to a big change in that period, with bass-player Stef Kamil Carlens and guitarist Rudy Trouvé leaving the band (they went on to form Zita Swoon, Dead Man Ray, Kiss My Jazz, Gore Slut and a myriad of other bands), and Scottish Craig Ward and Mr. cool Danny Mommens joining. Thus, it became clear that dEUS was part of an alternative scene of musicians around Antwerp with groups like Zita Swoon (aka Moondog Jr.), Kiss My Jazz (with Mauro Pawlowksi of Evil Superstars), General Electrique (see Cinérex) and Dead Man Ray. Or, as Humo put it in the review of "Theme from Turnpike" : "You cannot say dEUS sounds like a group on this record : "Overflow" is Tom Barman solo, the other three songs seem to be recorded by three different other groups. Maybe that's the case : after the summer festivals Stef Kamil Carlens will leave dEUS to dedicate all his time to his own group Moondog Jr. which will halt it's activities temporarily to give it's members Tom Pintens & Benjamin Boutreur the opportunity to experiment in Flowers For Breakfast who will release their first cd after another one of Moondog Jr. will be released. The roadies can't keep up with these changes and have decided to start a project of their own".

 

With "In a bar under the sea" however, the band showed their more "poppy" side again, as opposed to the more "rock"-like band of the debut album. Singles of the album were the terrific "Fell off the floor, man", "Little Arithmetics" and the wild "Roses".

In 1998, they successfully apply for the title of "Cultural Ambassador of Flanders". This concealed form of subsidizing (2 million BF. in the case of dEUS) is a title for musicians or artists who successfully export "Flemish Culture" abroad. The band recorded a new album, in Ronda, a small town in Andalusia, Spain, with Dave Botrill (who worked with King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ingrid Chavez etc.. before) as producer. The recording took place in "En Frente Arte", a hotel that has been bought by Filip Eyckmans, of their management Musickness.
The hopes for the new album, which got released early 1999, were very high : "We want to take a big step forward with this one", said Tom Barman in an interview with the Dutch newspaper "De Volkskrant", "We want to sell at least 300.000 copies of it. If you told me five years ago that we would sell 150.000 albums (like WCS and IABUTS did), I would have thought that to be way exaggerated. But at some point, we started to play in a different league, where bands sell more." Craig Ward agreed : "I wouldn't mind getting lesser reviews, but higher sales for the album. I want to be able to live off it."
The fear of bad reviews didn't become true at all with "The Ideal Crash", since about every single one of the reviewers seemed to like the 10 long, elaborated and emotional songs on the CD.

 

In Belgium, they played three sold-out concerts at the Ancienne Belgique, a summer gig at Zeebrugge, and three festivals with likeminded groups at the Halles de Schaerbeek (with Guided by Voices, Les Rhythmes Digitales, Orange Black, Vive La Fête ...). For these last concerts they also briefly reunited the original dEUS-line-up with Rudy Trouvé and Stef Kamil Carlens joining them on stage.
Singles of the album were "Instant Street", "Sister Dew"and the title track. According to Musickness, the Ideal Crash has sold 150,000 copies "worldwide", of which 40,000 in Belgium. As they told press-agency Belga, this is well short of the expected numbers (although about the same as the previous albums), but the concerts have had much better attendance then before.

In 2000, the band takes a "sabbatical", although the individual members might get involved in side-projects (eg. Danny Mommens & Julle de Borgher with Vive La Fête). Craig Ward, the scottish guitar-player, left the band in order to build a family-life again (logical replacement would be Tim Vanhamel, the young ex-Evil Superstars and Millionaire guitar-player who had been touring with them). In 2001 however, still nothing much was happening on the dEUS-front, leading to more and more doubts being uttered about whether the band still exists at all.
Tom Barman made a number of solo-performances (oft accompanied by Guy van Nueten of The Sands), such as at a Nick Drake-tribute at De Nachten or a performance at Montreux Jazz in Switzerland and was busy getting money for a movie he wants to shoot ("vrijdag, vrijdagavond"). He is also setting up a new project, called Magnus, involving hi & CJ Bolland (Anglo-Belgian techno producer & remixer, biggest hit probably "Sugar is sweeter", worked with all the "big names" and did remixes for acts so diverse as Depeche Mode, Tori Amos, Moby and Hooverphonic - not to be confounded with the Dutch producers duo Bolland & Bolland). They're currently recording a CD with Magnus, hoping to finish by november, meaning a release won't come before March 2002.

In October 2001, however, dEUS came out with a new single - "Nothing Really Ends"(release November 9). Members of the band talked about it as being "a Christmas single" before, but this is now thought to be related to the timing of the release instead of a feared candelight+mistletoe+santaclaus content (although there is a marimba on it).
This single aims to attract the attention to a compilation of the dEUS-singles which does have some christmas aspirations (namely to find itself under your christmas tree) and goes by the name "No More Loud Music" (release November 22). For the fans, there will be a special edition of it, with a DVD "No More Video" containing all the videoclips dEUS has shot so far (most of them directed by Barman himself), "making of"-movies and "a gigantic dEUS database" (pictures, lyrics ...) (release December).

Members :
- Tom Barman (vocals, guitar)
- Julle de Borgher (drums)
- Stef Kamil Carlens / Danny Mommens (bass, vocals)
- Klaas Janzoons (violin, keyboards)
- Rudy Trouve / Craig Ward (guitar)

Buy CD's of this band at proxis

Albums :
- Zea (MCD Bang! Records - 1993)
- Worst Case Scenario (Island - 1994)
- My sister = my clock (Island - 1995)
- In a bar under the sea (Island - 1996)
- The Ideal Crash (Island - 1999)
- No More Loud Music (Universal - 2001)

Websites :
- The official dEUS-site is http://www.deus.be
- My review of "The Ideal Crash"
- Hotellounge, the best Belgian fan-site by Jyves
- pre-The Ideal Crash interview with De Volkskrant.
- some nice dEUS-pictures from 1994-1997 by Niels van Ieperen
- dEUS-site on the Portuguese "Paredes de Coura"-festival
- Tabs to most dEUS-songs at guitarfiles.be
- I suffer rock, another well informed fan site
- Lyrics at Waltertje's Lyrics site

Forum :
- Read the messages/questions about dEUS
- Add your message, question, cd- or concertreview ... about dEUS

 

   
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