First things first, if you want to get in touch in any way (even hatred is welcome) send an email to thebookofdaniel@gmail.com
Anyway,
my name is Daniel Gustafsson and for a long time I had this picture of me above my piano where I'm standing in front of a mirror trying to look like a 50's jazzcat in a badly tailored suite, like a cheap dandy, wearing a pair of sneakers that looked like something a gypsy would wear, and
every time I saw that picture I thought I looked like someone who's really trying his best to play gospel while contemplating the fact that he's a white small town kid from Sweden who grew up with soccer and Kiss posters on his bedroom walls. And still, I'm really that boy, 'cause even if my perspective is broader today I couldn't hand you anything but the thought of that picture to try to pinpoint me and my music, which is just as much Debussy as Keith Richards, just as much Carl Michael Bellman as Miles Davis, just as much Van Morrison as swedish broadsheet ballads and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Alice & John Coltrane and Joseph Brodsky and Gunther Grass and my grandfathers bad knees and the lake where he tought me to swim and Scott Walker and Eric Satie and Jeff Buckley and being drunk while walking home with your best friends and shaking hands for the first time with someone you know will change your life and Mississippi John Hurt, Popsicle and Blind Willie Johnson and so on and so on. Yes, the musical church is broad, but it's still my church and it does have a roof and so do yours, and in the end it's all about gut feeling and music from the crotch, or as the chinese poem reads:
"The harvest-fly sings through the night,
and the smell of chrysanthemum is palpable,
so is the stench of piss"
Daniel
Gothenburg
June 2006.
Members of The Book of Daniel june 2006:
Daniel - Vocals, guitars and piano.
Adam - Saxophone.
Olis- Piano and Fender Rhodes.
Bille - Drums.
Jonas - Guitars.
Magnus - Bass.
Emily - Backing vocals.
REVIEWS ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL'S DEBUT "SONGS FOR THE LOCUST KING"
QUOTES FROM MOST REVIEWS TRANSLATED BY DANIEL WHEN USING A REALLY BAD ON-LINE TRANSLATOR, BUT I GUESS YOU GET THE PICTURE WHEN YOU READ ; )
"I am imprisoned in the musical cosmos of The Book of Daniel. I begin to believe in the Gospel of the saxophone and the words from Gustafssons voice, follow the call of the guitar and kneel down before the altar, which is the piano. This music supports, gives strength, feeds pieces and forms an armament, with whose assistance one holds oneself the lion of the body. I know now, how I should make it through the winter." 5 out of 5
-Mathias Möller - laut.de
"Simply marvelously and blessedly. One of these albums, where words cannot describe the music." 10 out of 10
- Andreas Zagelow - Soundmag.de
"That a large Songwriter debut is present here is clear. What more is there to add?!" 5 out of 5
-fomp.de
"The Book of Daniel is one of the most remarkable artists whom we may experience this year!" 9 out of 10
- Kiara Danewra - bumbanet.de
"'Songs For The Locust King' is unquestionably one of the most exciting
records of the year. Gustafsson watercolours atmospheres, composes
paintings, draws melodies, choreographs harmonies and poeticizes life in
such an impressive way that it isn't any wonder that critics rush to the
safe with the big names and return with full hands: Van Morrison, Rufus
Wainwright, Tom Waits, Jeff Buckley, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis. No
flyweight comparisons - but The Book Of Daniel succeeds in keeping the
scales in balance."
- Ina Simone Mautz - NEON.de
"Gustafssons compositions are rich and sweeping and - like the music of
kindred spirit and fellow countryman Nicolai Dunger - obviously schooled at
the most beautiful works of Van Morrison. While Gustafsson sings of paper
birds, made of a strangers's folded diary entries, a trumpet gently weeps.
Bring it on home, Daniel!"
- Jan Wigger - SPIEGEL ONLINE.
""Songs for the Locust King" is just fantastic; one of the more fully-realised debut albums I have heard in a long time."
- Matt Giordano - itsatrap.com
"I have rarely heard a debut album, which came in such a matured manner, as complex and at the same time direct as "Songs For The Locust King"
- Ole Püschel - discover.de
"The Book of Daniel has Swing, comes straight from the jazz cellar crept and discovered on the surface arriving the Soul. Marvelous!"
- Säm - pittiplatsch.de
9 out of 10 wasteofmind.de
8 out of 10 crazewire.de
8 out of 10 sellfish.de
8 out of 10 music-scan.de
4 out of 5 live-magazin.de
4 out of 5 musiklandet.se
4 out of 5 Live Magazin Saar
4 out of 5 Kieler Nachrichten
4 out of 5 Smag
6 out of 7 flamingyouth.de
5 out of 6 nordische-musik.de
5 out of 6 gaffa.dk
4 out of 6 undertoner.de
7,5 out of 10 tinnitus-mag.de
7 out of 10 itsatrap.com
7 out of 10 metica.se
7 out of 10 alternativenation.de
7 out of 10 spiegel.de
7 out of 10 allschools.de
7 out of 10 plattentests.de
7 out of 10 Ox Fanzine
