This month, each weekly issue of HUMO magazine comes with an instalment of the 4-part "Belgentop 2000", a compilation containing 80 of the past decade's best songs by Belgian artists. dEUS is featured on all 4 CD's, with Nothing Really Ends (Jan. 5), If You Don't Get What You Want (Jan. 12), What We Talk About (Jan. 19) and The Architect (Jan. 26).



See the complete tracklisting on HUMO's website. There are also songs by Mauro, Tom's Magnus, Stef Kamil's Zita Swoon, Danny's Vive la Fête, but not a single Dead Man Ray song.

On January 19, Belgian singer Axelle Red will release a new album called "Sisters & Empathy". That's her first record in English (she usually sings in French). The record will feature a duet with Tom Barman, and Mauro Pawlowski also contributes guitar parts.

It's not the first time Axelle and Tom sing together: back in 2000, Axelle joined Tom on stage at the Dranouter Festival, where they sang Serpentine. That performance was later released as a bonus track to Axelle Red's best-of album.

Tom Barman also directed Axelle Red's video for her 1995 single "Le Monde tourne mal".



[source: Le Soir]

Michael's review of Mauro's performance at De Nachten last week.

Exciting news. In a small interview with Nu.nl Mauro says they're already working on the next album. ''We're started out jamming and Tom has already record a couple of things"

The Popeye-expo in Hasselt is almost finished. There will be a couple of gigs to celebrate the end of the expo. Next sunday (June 8th) Mauro will play with the The Hitsville Drunks. On June 15th you can catch The Singing Painters, the band of Michael Borremans. More info here.

(thx to Michael)

A small video-item from TV Brussel about the gig in the AB, including an interview with Mauro.

A funny Mauro interview by VPRO (audio here).

Mauro interviewed about Vantage Point by Kindamuzik.

(thx to Johan Vrancken)

Othin Spake, one of Mauro's sideprojects will release a new album titled Child of Deception and Skill on the 15th of May. Click here for more info.

(thx to Wim)

An interview with Mauro from Mijnnl, a Dutch citymagazine. Quick round-up:

• if people say they hear a Mauro-influence in a song, they're mostly picking things that were Tom's idea
• he says the Belgian music scene would be boring without Tom

"Tom always expects us to come up with brilliant ideas, but there's never a shortage of ideas. That's a luxury. If I'm not inspired, because of the world situation or narcissic occupations, then the drummer will take care of providing ideas."

"dEUS and Evil Superstars were in the middle of the Belgian music boom in the 1990's, when suddenly anything from Belgium was great."

"I've played in ball orchestras, collaborated with extremely different people, I even made music for a doll theater. Anything is possible: I'm a professional."

"Vantage Point was named after our studio. Or so I thought. I've asked about that, but I still don't know what 'vantage' means exactly. I think it's something about a departure. So that, when the five of us are together, we are the vantage point. Sounds good eh? I just don't know if that's what it means. I've asked three times already, but you can't keep asking forever, so in the end you just make something up."

There's a very interesting interview with Tom on Austrian public radio FM4, in German. The ORF website also has an article titled "Die belgische Schule des Rock", about dEUS and Mintzkov. A summary of the interview, with my limited knowledge of German. Contributions welcome:

• TIC/PR: 6 years hiatus, PR/VP: 2 1/2 years - Why? The band didn't want to start looking for a new guitarist right after Craig left (for the first time) in 2000, then Tom started his short movie project, which became AWTWB, then there was the 2004 debacle, and Pocket Revolution was finally released after the new line-up was gathered. Vantage Point comes so soon because the band started rehearsing right after the PR tour, and having their own studio definitely helped.
  
• On producers: while Eric Drew Feldman (IABUTS) was a very arty and creative producer, and David Bottrill (TIC) almost had to act like a psychiatrist for a troubled band, for VP Dave McCracken had a much more song-oriented approach, which led to more compact songs. His work with Depeche Mode perhaps also fave VP a more electronic feel, even though it was recorded the old-fashioned way and with just a few synth sounds.
  
• Tom loves Tool.
  
• About Slow: the interviewer brings up the discussion we had on the forum about the Slow lyrics. "Slow Up" is a play on words, and it's also the name of the first album of X-Legged Sally, whose members Vermeersch & Vervloesem produced WCS. There's a whole part I don't understand, but apparently "Vantage Point" stems from the different ways Tom & Mauro look at things. Slow is very much the key-song for the album. It's also the very first time all band members sang together on one song.
  
• About Mintzkov's Lies Lorquet, who sings on Eternal Woman: she's got that 90's Kim Deal kind of voice that Tom was looking for. Asked about the similarities between Mintzkov & dEUS, Tom thinks the new generation of Belgian musicians isn't looking for a dEUS sound, but for a dance sound, like Goose have.
  
• He's happy that his band mates have side projects, but dEUS must remain a priority. He is very grateful to Rudy for all the things he learnt thanks to him. Mauro is working on new Love Substitutes material.
  
• About the state of the music industry: even if Tom knows about Radiohead & NIN's experiments in digital distribution, he's not that interested in technology. From his point of view things aren't that different: they still record albums, he still gives interviews and tours with the band... But he's sad about the disappearing of the album as a standard, he regrets that today's youngsters don't rush out to get their favourite band's next album and play it from A to Z. He misses vinyl. VP has 10 songs: 5 songs for the A-side, 5 for the B-side.
  
• They've listened to 10.000 days by Tool before each gig of the last tour

ORF also have a rather nice concert review from 2005.

[thx to lovedeus for the tip]

Update: a Dutch translation by Wouter Verschelde
Update 2: an Englisch translation by lovedeus

Mauro has written a song (in Dutch) for the comeback-album of Flemish singer Isabelle A. Other people who contributed include Luc De Vos, An Pierlé, Sarah Bettens and Sioen. The album will be released somewhere in May and will be titled De Macht Der Gewoonte.

Tom will deejay in the Petrol-club (Antwerp) on August 3th. There's a Radio Centraal-festival that day including performances by Mauro, Rudy Trouvé & Elko Blijweert.

A message on the website of Lier's Cultuurcentrum informs us that a 2008 performance with Mauro Pawlowski and Dutch/Palestinian writer/actor Ramsey Nasr is cancelled because dEUS will release their new album "sooner than expected" and start touring in April.

[thanks to hansje909 on ISufferRock]

Besides his dj-set at Art Makes You Happy, Mauro will also perform in De Droge Coo in Oostende next saturday. Other acts on stage include Annelies Monseré and Kumisolo. And Othin Spake will perform at KC Netwerk in Aalst on September 28th with Jessica Bailiff. For more Mauro-dates check the new version of Mauroworld.

Tom and Mauro will be deejaying at the All True Artists-event in Antwerp this summer. Mauro will be behind the decks next saturday (June 30th) and Tom will be there at the end of July (the 28th to be exact)

Tom and Mauro will be deejaying before, between and after the concerts at the Blue Note Records Festival in Ghent on July 13th.

Jezusfactory will release an album with songs from Mauro, Craig Ward and Rudy Trouvé. Check the myspace for more info.

There's a big item about Mauro in Gonzo Circus. It also includes an online special where Mauro talks about 12 songs that were featured on one of the free cd that came with the magazine the last 15 years.

They also let him listen to a track by Annelies Monseré (Myspace), the girlfriend from one of my colleagues at De Standaard. The guy is also running a small record label, called Morc Records and he gave me a tip about the Gonzo-feature. And about a split-lp Mauro will be releasing somewhere in a few months.