DOMINO: OPENING NIGHT: TAPE TUM + MARBLE SOUNDS + THE BEAR THAT WASN'T

Three Belgian gems. Three ‘débutantes.’ Three fine, compellingly intriguing, soon-to-be-released debut albums from local soil that are sure to be highlights of 2010. Basically: take an immediate look at the rich musical abundance from 'just around the corner' on this opening night.

8:00 pm - The Bear That Wasn't
The Bear That Wasn't – a name derived from the children's book by Frank Tashlin from ’46 - is the alter-ego of Nils Verresen. Armed with an acoustic guitar and angelic vocal chords, he has already impressed at the AB as opener for Kimya Dawson. He often cites Gravenhurst, Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver and Elliott Smith as influences. His debut ‘And So It Is Morning Dew' is to be released this spring, on which – true to tradition – he invents fine song titles like ‘The Little Witch And The Brave Boy Are Going To Venus’ or ‘The Exciting Adventures of A Bad Bet, A Bad Alliteration And Mister Consequences’. But more importantly: it's an album full of fantastic Duyster-music with gems like ‘Winterwandering’ that you immediately want to put on endless repeat. Before and after his visit to Domino, this bear will be rounding up a Belgian tour entitled ‘365 days’, in which, armed with an acoustic guitar, he travels by bike to drop in on 365 households willing to provide him with accommodation for a night. In exchange Nils provides a living-room concert. A film about this project will later be released by the people behind ‘Part of the Weekend Never Dies’, Soulwax's tour documentary.

9:00 pm - Marble Sounds (b)
“Marble Sounds werd ons aanbevolen met de krachttermen 'bloedmooi' en 'Duyster'” (Focus Knack). So there are more than enough good reasons to include them in the chart ‘2010 Om Te Zien’ that contains the 'future of music for 2010' according to Focus Knack. That is quite remarkable, as - aside from an EP (‘A Painting And A Spill’) and an impressive opening track to the Kath Bloom tribute album ‘Loving Takes This Course: A Tribute to the Songs of Kath Bloom’ - there haven't been a lot of mentionable feats to date. OK, they've appeared in the good company of the likes of Devendra Banhart, Bill Callahan, The Dodos and Josephine Foster, but it was especially the Isbells-link that opened the eyes of the outside world. This spring their fully-fledged debut ‘Nice Is Good’ will be released via Zeal Records (again: see Isbells). A heavenly album that is sure to make an impression and which strongly reminds us of the obsessive perfection of The Notwist and also Pinback... and a lot of other good sounds which don't immediately spring to mind.

10:00 pm - Tape Tum
Tape Tum have already appeared on the AB-stage thrice, for the first time in ’05. So it's no surprise then that the band was also AB's ‘artist in residence’ in that same year. In ’06 they even ended up on the Domino-CD compiled by the AB as a supplement to The Wire, between good folk like Battles, Sunn O))), Black Dice and Akron/Family. The babbling electronica with minimal vocals from those days has now matured and sometimes even takes on epic proportions on their debut ‘The Night We Called It A Day’. We hear echoes of Grizzly Bear, Pinback and also Cornelius. Tape Tum's core is still ‘sibling-duo’ Lieven and Benjamin Dousselaere (the latter of which also resides in The Violent Husbands). Focus Knack included them in the chart ‘2010 Om Te Zien’ too and the international tale is certainly looking good. Iceland's Kimi Records (see: Hjaltalín, Borko, Benni Hemm Hemm,…) will be providing them with a worldwide release.

With the support of and