The Ballroomquartet

The Ballroomquartet was set up in autumn 2001. After only a handful of performances the band wins the musical contest ‘Rockvonk 2002’ in Belgium. The mini-album Ballroom on the Rocks (2002) and the single Death Valley (2003) set the ball rolling. The quartet performs at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels and is featured at e.g. Brosella, Dranouter, Fonnefeesten, Marktrock and Plazeyfestival. In 2004 the band launches its first full-CD Surfing Sufi. The recording was done by Red Tape Studio-duo ‘Monsieur Paul’ (Triggerfinger) and Filip Goris. The press were almost unanimously laudatory about the album: Surfing Sufi harvests good write-ups aswell in Belgian as in Dutch newspapers and magazines like for instance Oor, Knack, De Morgen, De Standaard, Rifraf, fRoots and Stage. The band is not short of airplay either and the filmic qualities of the boys’ music did not pass unnoticed with television makers. Several compilations – e.g. Klara - feature the group as soon as in 2002. In 2007 Ballroomquaret released their second fullalbum ’Soundmanifest’. They recorded and produced the album themselves and Raf Roesems from ‘Alamo Sound Services’ signed for the mixing. Again the album was received with excellent and amazing reviews and forced a breaktrough in the Belgian musicscene. Again the press was unanimously laudatory ( e.g. 4 stars - De Morgen and excellent reviews - Oor & De Standaard again) and brings the band to a lot of famous festivals in Belgium, The Netherlands and France. Music of this second album was used by several film and documentary makers such as Julien Vrebos. The rather unusual combination of instruments and influences endowes The Ballroomquartet with one of the most original sounds in Belgium. These citizens of the world of music blend loads of exotic sonorities into their repertoire. The sound of their acoustic instruments – accordion, mandolin, violin, double-bass and drums – is distorted in every possible way thus producing a cinemascopic mixture of dance, trance, eastern world music, roots and rock. Effects, synthesizers, vocoders and all sorts of electronical devices endow their tunes with a contemporary and sometimes even experimental personality. The members of The Ballroomquartet are Andries Boone (mandolin, violin, bulbul-tarang and voices), Rony Deprins (accordion, synths, theremin, vocoder and voices), Michaël Donckers (electric bass and clarinet) and David Vertongen (drums, percussion, glockenspiel and piano). The boys also had the opportunity to work together with wellknown artists and prestigious projects. The wide diversity of influences result in an unheard musical cross-breeding that could be localised somewhere between the London suburbs and the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. Without any doubt ballroomquartet has one of the most original and innovating sounds in Belgium! In october 2008 they were invited by the famous French composer Yann Tiersen to play @ the famous concerthall 'La Cigale' in Paris on the Montmartre Filmfestival. In december 2009 they will release their next fullalbum produced by Blixa Bargeld from Einstürzende Neubauten & Nick Cave!