Magnus
The Body Gave You Everything

THE REVIEW

It's late at night. You're wandering the streets of a Central European city (say... Antwerp...), when, as you walk past the door of a small club with a sign that says Magnus live, you hear – muffled by the walls – deep beats, a very groovy bass, and then you can't resist: you cross that threshold and enter. The club is quite dark, the atmosphere dominated by chiaroscuro within which bodies move harmoniously to the rhythm of all the sounds that can make people dance in a club... Dance, electronica, funk, techno, and so on. You look for the guy with the headphones to see what instruments he's handling, and you find not just one but two; but one of them, the blond one, with the scruffy beard and an innocent face crossed by flashes of madness, you know that one! ...Tom Barman?!? What the heck is he doing there?!?

How many different souls does this guy have? The alternative one of dEUS (where he's also placed his heart), the director of Any Way The Wind Blows, the singer-songwriter of the live with Van Nueten, plus all the facets shown in various collaborations around Europe. But this other one (brand new: 2004) is truly unusual for an indie-rocker like him: an electro-dance soul!

Magnus is, in fact, a project where Tom collaborates with C.J. Bolland, someone with a techno DJ soul - and heart. The intention is to create something unusual, and with two musicians of almost opposite backgrounds (plus various other valuable contributions – like Peter Vermeersch, Mauro Pawlowski, Tim Vanhamel, Tomas De Smet), I’d like to see otherwise… this something, however, doesn't care about heart and soul: the music of Magnus is for the body. The Body Gave You Everything: the title says it all!

“Rhythm Is Deified”: Tom repeats it obsessively in the first track with his tone, surprisingly (but not too much) at ease even in these club atmospheres; self-confident or sweet, appropriately self-ironic. “Summer’s here” (also part of the soundtrack of the film directed by Barman, alongside “Assault On Magnus”), amidst the samples, reminds you that Tommy has a knack for melody, no doubt about it. Phenomenal “Soft Foot Shuffle”, a drum’n’bass track that tells you something else: what the body doesn’t remember / is what the soul has got in store for you / and when the soul finally surrenders / you’re gonna know it made your body move… “French movie” makes you realize how sophisticated it all is, and at the same time excites you, you can't resist, your head starts to move, your shoulders follow, even your body is swaying (and so is that dazzling woman with short hair and gentle features moving sinuously, she's the same one who emerges softly in the booklet and on the cover)... Don’t miss a single beat…