D.A.A.U.

D.A.A.U.
TUB GURNARD GOODNESS (2004)
320 KBPS

Genre is so passé. Antwerp twerps Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung (DAAU) join big boys Radiohead, TV on the Radio and others in taxing music taxonomists with kitchen sink audio alchemy. DAAU grew up under the auspices of Belgian brethren dEUS and Moondog Jr. (Zita Swoon), but musical comparisons to their early stage superiors are futile. Album opener ‘My Goodness! Poetry’ is a Klezmer incarnation of Apocalyptica covering The Fiery Furnaces covering Camille Saint-Saëns. My goodness! It’s free verse until ‘Raw Like Milk’, which finally resembles common song structure with melody and repetition and all that. But as you settle into its accelerated Mogwai build, you become intoxicated by their tipsy gypsy Mozart mash. Amidst so many musical deviations, the ‘2 + 2 = 5′ cover adds up to an unimaginative conceit to tune in Radiohead fans, a broad band dial that connects for me.
For all this deliberate musical dissociation, DAAU frequently get off to familiar phrases from film scores. But it’s probably too late to discover new lines in the mathematically limited world of music, anyway, and DAAU’s puree-set blender reduces their disparate influences to whispered hints of cinnamon and turmeric. Despite spicy metaphors, the album’s texture underperforms its writing. The songs’ energy and complexity require more than the sparse chamber instrumentation supplies. The album’s strongest track - ‘Even More Lost Souls’ (following ‘Lost Souls’ and ‘More Lost Souls’ from previous albums) - triumphs because of the soulful expression enabled by its simplicity and melancholy pace. The mournful drone remains tensely pre-orgasmic to the end.
Excepting the dub-percussion reggae track, ‘A Funny Little Feeling’, DAAU’s latest rocks through contemporary classical music but sounds like neither style. Blame the instrument selection: violin, accordion, cello, and clarinet. They’ve settled a bit since 2001’s Life Transmission, which made use of more styles than tracks. Still, after nine years and six albums, DAAU refuse to forge a signature style - but everything they serve is guaranteed fresh.

1. My Goodness
2. Off The Record
3. Is This It?
4. Raw Like Milk
5. Guts
6. Of R*D*H*D
7. A Funny Little Feeling
8. Catfish Blues
9. A Shortcut To The Edge
10. Even More Lost Souls
11. In My Midnight Skies
12. Two Fast Dreams