Megafaun and Belgium have a special relationship as even they might be from North Carolina, their records are released on Crammed Discs, the legendary Belgian label that brought us bands like Tuxedomoon or Minimal Compact.
The reason why they’re signed is pretty clear. Not only do they have talent but they’re a bit a superband as they once used to be DeYarmond Edison and that’s the band that used to feature Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver, the 4-AD superstar.
It’s not fair to say, I’m aware of that, but Megafaun do have a lot in common with Bon Iver as they bring an American countrything in a rather special unconventional way.
If you said to me before seeing Megafaun that mixing krautrockesque-sounds à la Brian Eno with country could have come to a good end, I would have laughed with you. After having witnessed Megafaun on stage, I know it’s possible.
This trio which features two brothers (Cook is the name!) are creating ordinary countrysongs but it’s how they develop these ordinary things which is pretty interesting, as it can end up in a spacerock-ish atmosphere or it can have the intimacy that you only expect on some Bonnie Prince Billy-record.
Their gig in Gent got a quite big crowd (I guess it was around 400 people who actually showed up) and the band were truly overwhelmed themselves that they had to face such a big audience, it was probably the first time in their career.
You can see that the stage isn’t their playground yet but they are musicians who know every corner from their instruments (and they play a lot of them including the godlike banjo). For me, they were one of the nicest surprises I saw in 2010 so far (and for the audience) as after all country (even not nu-country) is not the genre I wet my bed for, but this band have it.
Great concert guys!
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