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Plays: 893
Views: 2040 |
Formed: 1993
Official Site: www.shades-of-dawn.de iSound Site: www.isound.com/shades_of_dawn
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| A soundscape of sound fantasies on the edge of reality - where dreams begin. Impressive arrangements which can almost be called rock symphonies. Filigreed, sensitive melodies, and a bombastic musical universe create a unique synthesis, requiring each other. This is the music |
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| I don't understand |  |  | Add to station | Add Comment | Free | 2.7 | [Single] | Important: you should turn off any pop-up blockers as the mp3 player is a pop-up window and may not load! |
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A soundscape of sound fantasies on the edge of reality - where dreams begin. Impressive arrangements which can almost be called rock symphonies. Filigreed, sensitive melodies, and a bombastic musical universe create a unique synthesis, requiring each other. This is the music of Shades of Dawn, a progressive rock band from Duesseldorf. Where powerful guitars, elaborated melodies and varied keyboard parts alternate, parallels to CAMEL, YES, GENESIS and ELOY become apparent. Nevertheless, SOD have created their very own special style.
In 1993, the Dusseldorf-based band KAWUMM were looking for a lead vocalist and finally found Hans-Juergen Klein, an experienced guitarist, vocalist and composer. Their line-up already consisted of two keyboardists, a lead guitarist, a drummer and a guy who played doubleneck bass & guitar. Shortly afterwards, the group's name was changed to SHADES OF DAWN. In autumn of the same year, after playing a gig at an international street fair, original lead guitarist Karl Nothen quit the band which at that time had comprised six members.
Without him, in 1994, SHADES OF DAWN started recording the music on which they had been working prior to Nothen’s departure. The slight blues touches introduced by the excellent guitarist Nothen were replaced by a more melodic style due to Hans-Juergen Klein who since has taken over all lead-guitar work. Due to financial problems they were forced to put the entire project aside for a while.
In 1995, former KAWUMM mastermind and bass player Wolfgang Schmidt and female keyboard player Annette Schepermann left the band. They were replaced by keyboard wizard Cyrill Stoletzky and bass player Theo Labs after some time of searching.
During the summer of 1997, SOD embarked upon recording sessions for a brand new album entitled "The Dawn Of Time" and played together with POVERTY‘S NO CRIME and THOUGHTSPHERE at the "A night in Progressive Rock" festival in Duesseldorf. The album was released in April 1998 on the new Early Birds label, a division of the well-known re-issue specialists "SECOND BATTLE".
In July 1998, the band successfully played, along with Colosseum, Wishbone Ash, Caravan, Man, Edgar Broughton Band, John Mayall and others, at the Burg Herzberg Festival, Germany’s most famous Hippie Festival.
In March, Shades of Dawn appeared together with ELOY, Camel's bass player COLIN BASS, ETERNITY X and others on a sampler released by the German Pink Floyd Fanclub "Eclipsed".
At about this time the band was asked to do soundtracks for TV Productions.
Bass player Wolfgang Rose encountered the band in March 2001 and tried taking over Labs' job. Unfortunately, he did not progress on bass and was unwilling to practise. Finally, the band kicked him out in January 2002 because he jeopardised the group‘s performance on the German "Progparade No.3" in Neustadt. They asked Edzard Schmidt for a little short term help.
The end of February 2002 brought bass player Christian Waelter to Shades of Dawn. With him, the band successfully performed at the "Unterrather Rocktag", among other events.
From mid-2003 on, Shades of Dawn played on stage with Edzard Schmidt again, for instance at a fund-raising event to benefit the homeless. Starting in September of the same year, Peter Schneider, Hans-Jürgen Klein and Chris Struwe revised the unreleased tapes the band had made in 1994. The recordings were sonically improved and some overdubs were newly recorded.
In 2004, among other gigs, SOD played at the Bergkeller in Reichenbach in eastern Germany, legendary by now, and also did a concert with the band MORPHELIA at Aurich. By this time, Shades of Dawn were presenting more than 50 minutes’ worth of new material from "Graffity’s Rainbow" which was to be the band’s third album.
Meanwhile, the older recordings had been optimised and were now being completely re-mixed, and bonus material was being recorded as well. The album "From Dusk till Dawn" was finally taking shape and was mastered between October 2004 and January 2005. At the same time, SOD started recording the new album.
In January 2005 SOD’s original bass player Theo Labs got in touch with the band again.
The band played live on a Prog Night and is now working on their new recordings again. |
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