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It is GlamPop. It is ArtRock. It’s High Fidelity Lofitronics. It’s reminiscent to the Dandy Warhols for some, to Franz Ferdinand for others. It’s a delicate mix of 70s Pop, 80s Beats and 90s Rock. It’s groovy. It’s edgy. It’s taking the best of all worlds and transforming it into a here & now sound that is truly their own. That’s A Brand *** Where mutual musical likes and a concept of music that goes beyond your regular rock ‘n roll band undoubtedly formed the basis of the tandem Dag Taeldeman – Frederik Heuvinck, most probably it were rather their differences and individualities that explain the fresh and unique sound that we discovered on A Brand’s debut album “45 RPM” in 2004. “45 RPM” comprised the studio recording of the collection of songs that in 2003 were already released separately in a rough demo version for Geoffrey De Beer’s unique project “A Brand Plays Phonomatic” – a vending machine through which these songs were distributed, all as singles and each labeled with a different design of artists like Guillaume Bijl, Luc Tuymans and Jan Fabre. With singles as “Riding Your Ghost” and “I do as I please” that got picked up by radio in no time, A Brand showed their true potential: making rock sound catchy and making pop sound interesting. It wasn’t however until the release of “45 RPM” that A Brand developed into a full-blown rock band and transformed from the former two-piece into a five-piece. Studio and live musicians became full time band members and contributed to the writing process. On “Hammerhead” we hear a band that has evolved, that has matured but without losing their freshness and the recognizable sound of up to five different voices, timbres and rhythms and synth-like guitars at the same time. It’s not just A Brand… It is also a band. Nominated in 2005 for the prestigious Belgian ZAMU Awards in the category Focus, A Brand felt proud to be recognized as a noteworthy upcoming band in independent music. It is through shows at e.g. Pukkelpop and Dour Festival, a smashing support for The Killers, SXSW Festival in Austin and overall their concert tours in Belgium, Holland and Switzerland that they earned a reputation as “high quality live performers” and had the press talk about the “typical A Brand vocals annex guitars”. A healthy amount of ambition drives them to take things even further with the release of the new record, aiming for a European wide release and touring and taking the first steps to establish their name overseas. |
