Platinum

Before the gig at Werchter, dEUS received a platinum-album
for more than 30.000 sold copies of Vantage Point.

Vantage Point lyrics

Jean-Yves has added the lyrics of all Vantage Point-songs to Hotellounge.com.

iTunes

Vantage Point is now available on the French iTunes Music Store (and probably the rest of Europe too. It's not (yet) available in Belgium and the UK. Click here to download it on iTunes.

Luisterpaal

Vantage Point is now availabe on VPRO's Luisterpaal too.

(thx to Marc Cocquyt)

Heineken removes Vantage Point

Vantage Point is no longer available on the Spanish Heineken-website. Yesterday all Belgian newssites (starting with Het Laatste Nieuws) reported about the pre-listening possibily as Heineken.es. Obviously Universal (the record company for Belgium) wasn't very happy about it.

The deal with Heineken was made by Co-operative Music (COOP), the late V2, the record company that is representing dEUS in the rest of the world. Universal didn't known about the deal.

Yesterday evening, while the news had been widely spread in Belgium, Heineken removed the album. It's still unclear if this incident will affect other (already announced) pre-listening possibilities such as the VPRO-luisterpaal.

(Source: De Morgen, Gazet van Antwerpen en De Standaard)

Update: dEUS manager Christian Pierre was interviewed by Focus Knack about this.

Listen to Vantage Point

Short snippets of the complete album are available on the website of the Plato-recordstore. You have to ask for a login-code first though.

(thx to Wouter)

Update: Plato removed the login-thing

Slow promo

Received a scan of the radiopromo of Slow today. Catalogue number is VVR5050773P. Click the image for a bigger version.

Track by track

1. When She Comes Down

• a song about transience and the attempts to keep the unique moment of a gig you share with loads of people

2. Oh Your God

• contains the phrase Who looks over my shoulder
• about Tom's search for confirmation

3. Eternal Woman

• about the desire to a neverending love

4. Favourite Game
5. Slow

• the international single
• guest-appearance Karin Dreijer Andersson from The Knife

6. The Architect

• the first single in Belgium
• an ode to Richard Buckminster Fuller, an American scientist, architect, poet and designer
• a beautiful story about somebody who turns off his ego and uses his genie for humanity
• it contains edited samples of Fullers voice
• sung by Mauro

7. Is a Robot

• a critic on the life Tom was (and is) living
• all routine is deadly for creativity (also the routine of having a party every day)

8. Smokers Reflect

• could be a song from the Pocket Revolution-sessions
• includes a beautiful piano refrain
• a song about love’s regret.

9. The Vanishing of Maria Schneider

• guest-appearance by Guy Garvey from Elbow
• an old-world, super-romantic Technicolor lovesong
• a lilting meditation upon the transitory nature of beauty
• about actrice Maria Scheider, Tom's personification of eternal youth
• Scheider was brilliant in Last Tango In Paris (with Marlon Brando)

10. Popular Culture

• contains raggedy choirs singing philosophical choruses over strings and a veritable Phil Spector Wall Of Sound.

If you have additions to this list, just leave it in the comments or drop me a line.

Live XS

A quick summary of the LiveXS-interview:

• they started working on the new album after the Pocket Revolution-tour because they wanted to keep the energy of the 150-gigs they played in the current line-up
• they were very aware of the direction they were going
• Tom says they've thrown away their ego's and try to make a good team
• He's no longer saying that frictions are necessary to make good art
• they've used all dEUS-voices on Vantage Point, every bandmember is singing and Tom says it was a fantastic experience
• It's fun to surprise the fans after so many years with the fact Mauro is doing the lead vocals on The Architect
• Vantage Point is a new start for the band, they've discovered a new way of working, with a focus on live-performances and 'jamsessions with vision'
• Tom says they're currently playing the semi-finals of the Champions League, but the goal it to get in the final.
• The big target is (finally) an international breakthrough, but a couple of elements they don't control are also important to succeed.
• He's happy the record is released in Japan because it opens a new world for them
• Tom also gave some info on a couple of tracks, but I'll come back to that later this week in a track-by-track overview of the album.

Listening party

Neli's report of the Japanese listening party of Vantage Point.

LiveXS interview

An interview with Tom about the new album on Dutch Musiczine LiveXS. Tom is talking about almost each song on the album, but I have no time at this moment to translate it all. I'll try to do it later today.

Japanese release

According to Neli on ISR Vantage Point will be released in Japan on May 21st.

BTW: Found a drawing of Tom on Neli's blog.

Velvet Music Breda

Nice action for people living in the Breda-area: if you pre-order Vantage Point at Velvet Music you get a transparent 7" of Slow and an album poster for free. You also participate in a contest to win a canvas with the cover-artwork signed by the band.

The Architect release

According to Velvet Music a 2-track version of The Architect will be released on April 1st. No further info on the 2nd track. And Vantage Point will be available in a digipack too.

Humo's Top 20

The Architect has reached the first position in Humo's Top 20 and climbed further to two in De Afrekening.

Slow on Last.fm

Just noticed that Slow is also available on Last.fm.

The first hit

The Architect will enter the official Belgian chart Ultratop at 3 next saturday. It's the first time a dEUS-single scores so high in a chart based on sales. Last week the song entered at 1 in the tip-chart, so it's no suprise it pop ups in the real chart this week.

Since 1995 dEUS have only made it to the Ultratop three times. They scored their highest position in 2001 with Nothing Really Ends (30). Little Arithmetics made it to number 40 and Instant Street to 48.

Arriba!

The Architect is still number 1 in Humo's Arriba!-chart.

De Hotlist

The Architect entered Studio Brussel's Hotlist at 1.

Humo's Top 20

The Architect entered Humo's Top 20-list at #4. Click here for the complete list.