De Held + Lieven Tavernier

THE HERO

“I started working on this record in November 1998.” says De Held, who was born as Jo Jacobs. November 1998. That was forever ago. Thirteen years and five thousand crazy days of fickleness later, they are finally here: 13 songs. They are so brittle and so tender that they seem to float. They were plucked out of the air at the right time by Gaëtan Vandewoude from Isbells. They are taken from the life of a thinker from the interior of Limburg.

De Held makes dark bedroom music but with points of light. Think: Toon Hermans meets Mark Everett (Eels) on an autumn day. He brings them to you with Raf Ilsbroekx (Bonfire Lakes, Familie Segers) and Niels Hendrix (Buffoon, Fence, The Shovels). His self-titled debut has just hit shelves. The single Typical Belgian Weather is timeless.

LIEVEN TAVERNIER

CD PRESENTATION: WITZAND

The history of Lieven Tavernier is well known to the Ghent public. The man from The First Snow and The Fanfare of Hunger and Thirst had long been world famous in a just world. But the Ghent cross between John Prine and Bob Dylan is far too modest for this world.

Lieven Tavernier has only released 4 CDs (Do it Light, Ilya, Not Beyond and Wind and Smoke). He was looking for a new sound for his fifth CD. It is an open secret that Lieven spent half his recording budget on coffees in the Mokabon where he continued to worry about how he would package his songs this time. On a blue Monday he shared a table with Koen Gisen (producer of The Bony King of Nowhere and works at An Pierlé & White Velvet), who lured him to his studio 'La Patrie'. /p>

At Witzand, Tavernier finally goes electric, but not like Dylan did with a mediocre blues band. On the record you mainly hear Koen - who plays almost everything and weaves a brilliant sound tapestry - and the singer himself, who has never sounded so confident. For the first time, no doubt in the voice and songs with an indefinable atmosphere that unmistakably refers to the producer work of Daniel Lanois. Lieven Tavernier is the best kept secret among Dutch singer-songwriters. How long can you keep a secret?