DAAU
Domestic Wildlife

Anarchist Evening Entertainment

Mutable, multifaceted, and multicultural these Die Anarchistische Abendunterhaltung, or DAAU for short: without much formality, they transition from their incarnation as a canonical classical ensemble to a klezmer band, even getting their hands dirty with dub and why not, winking at a certain kraut noise.
"Lounja La Gazelle" is like a sunny afternoon in a zoo, where the sound of the clarinet perfectly matches the slow and graceful gait of the animals. The walk continues, the sound becomes more imposing, the double bass gets more jazzy, and it seems as if you can see the tamed wild life of an elephant before your eyes. Further on, the lazy and indolent enchantment of "Rabbit Eye Movement," suspended in time like the illegitimate child of Ravel's Bolero and the opening of Grieg's Peer Gynt. A perfect combination of pieces more strictly faithful to the classical tradition with others closer to the urgency of the contemporary age, such as "Disponitioning System," where the accordion (but how much more beautiful is it to call it accordion?) transforms into a siren, and the violin and cello twist and distort.

Not a single word, an entirely instrumental album where the sound is all there is and all that's needed. Electronic flashes appear (with which the band has extensively played in the past and which, so far in this album, seemed to have stripped away) in "Pedanterie," a playful prank on the brink of improvisation, and then again in "Wish You Were Hit," with a small violin loop reminiscent of the ever-Belgian "Suds & Soda."
The classical setup is momentarily abandoned for an almost rock-like approach where the unconventional distortion of the played instruments perfectly replaces the lack of a guitar.

"Tropic of Cancer" is chilling, despite the latitude: it abandons modernities and electronic trappings and lets the double bass set a repeated groove on which violin and cello grow into a swirling vortex, with the clarinet finishing the arabesques.
But it's just a moment, because with "Aufhören," the sound returns tumultuous and modernist. If only the instruments used weren't the quintessential classical ones, this could be a metal piece. "Highway Tiger" is adorned with a cosmic and distant aura, while the interlude of "Nowhere Beach," unexpectedly, resurfaces the klezmer influence for an almost danceable piece whose melody bounces like a mad ball between accordion, violin, and clarinet, before, yet another twist, the scene is left open to noises and feedback (as much as they can have feedback from non-amplified instruments). "Lost Soles" solemnly pulls in the oars, without too many surprises, for a closure that unfortunately lacks a bit of a definitive aspect.

Excellent performance by this Belgian band, on their first experience as a sextet due to the stable addition, precisely for this album, of double bass and drums to the usual quartet composed of violin, cello, clarinet, and accordion. DAAU continues to amaze, album after album, never repeating themselves, but always open to new sounds and influences. A pleasantly chameleonic group.