awkward i

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AWKWARD i - Silent Disco

AWKWARD i - Silent Disco

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AWKWARD i - Happiest Man (at ...

AWKWARD i - Happiest Man (at your funeral)

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AWKWARD i - Milkshakes Funnelc...

AWKWARD i - Milkshakes Funnelcakes

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AWKWARD i - Road is Rock

AWKWARD i - Road is Rock

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AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath a S...

AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

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AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath a S...

AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky - RTL LATE NIGHT

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Djurre de Haan - DWDD Recordin...

Djurre de Haan - DWDD Recordings: Mother's Last Words To Her Son, Washington Phillips - 27-3-2012

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AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath a S...

AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky (Arjen Lubach remix)

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AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath A S...

AWKWARD i - A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky (live in Robot Studios)

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27 Aug 2021

Nieuw Album Djurre de Haan - Monsters en Freaks

'Monster en Freaks, Indiepop Voor Beginners' is het Nederlandstalige debuutalbum van Djurre de Haan en verschijnt 17 september op Excelsior Recordings. Djurre maakte in de hoedanigheid van singer-songwriter AWKWARD i drie studioalbums (de vierde langspeler staat in de planning).


Monsters en Freaks' is een bloemlezing van De Haan’s beste werk dat hij in de loop der jaren voor tv, film en theater componeerde. Op het album vinden we onder andere liedjes die zijn gebruikt voor de hooggewaardeerde serie Kamp Koekieloekie die recent door de NTR werd uitgezonden, liedjes voor de theatervoorstelling Lampje (naar het succesvolle jeugdboek van Annet Schaap) en twee duetten die Djurre opnam samen met Tim Knol voor het programma Beestieboys.

De muziek van Djurre de Haan is niet onopgemerkt gebleven. Zo ontving hij twee Gouden Kalf nominaties en kan hij Nico Dijkshoorn tot een van zijn bewonderaars rekenen.

Djurre zijn liedjes, geschreven voor toneelvoorstellingen en kinderseries, zitten vol met zinnetjes die - en dat weet ik nu al - op precies het goede moment zullen worden gezongen. Ik hoorde er talloze voorbijkomen.” - Nico Dijkshoorn

Djurre schuwt volwassen thematiek niet. Dat is terug te horen in zowel zijn gelaagde teksten als muziek. Indiepop voor beginners, voor kinderen en hun ouders.

Shows

No scheduled shows at the moment, sorry! That could change soon though so keep an eye on this page.

Discography

Tracklisting

Monsters en Freaks: Indiepop Voor Beginners

12" vinyl / CD - Excelsior Recordings - Not yet released

Tracklisting

Deluxe Edition "I Really Should Whisper + Everything On Wheels" (2CD)

CD - Excelsior Recordings - 2018

KYD

CD / LP / Digital - Excelsior Recordings - 2018

Tracklisting

Rock Stars/ Mother's Last Words to her Son 7"

7" vinyl - Tender Records - 2016

Everything On Wheels

CD / LP / Digital - Excelsior Recordings - 2011

Tracklisting

4 Track EP

7" vinyl - Excelsior Recordings - 2010

I Really Should Whisper

CD / LP / Digital - Excelsior Recordings - 2009

awkward i

AWKWARD i, aka Dutch songwriter Djurre de Haan, has announced a new album: KYD. De Haan found the word “Kyd” in a magazine article about off-the-grid communities. “A woman had the idealistic idea of allowing her son to choose his own name. She waited until he was old enough to decide for himself. When she finally asked him, he told her his name was “Kyd”. Because, up to this point, people had always been referring to him as such.”

 

De Haan was instantly smitten by the name KYD; right off the bat, it became obvious to name the new AWKWARD i record after it. “I wanted to use a metaphorical language in which I could deal with plain banal events at a more universal level. KYD was just the word for it: it seems to both contain and defy a sense of meaning.” Something maybe a little less tangible and  pronounced than records De Haan made in the past. The title of his previous album Everything On Wheels, for instance,  translated literally as the Dutch phrase “alles op rolletjes”, meaning: being content and in the driver’s seat for the most part, and being flexible enough to steer clear of any obstacle you encounter. There’s always some kind of thematic cohesion palpable in AWKWARD i’s work: KYD, however, partly resigns to the notion that some things just happen beyond one’s control.

 

About five years ago, De Haan had a firm grip on the road he paved for himself. He was able to swerve across many facets of life – both personal and professional – pretty much with playful abandon. Next to his deft songwriting acumen, De Haan carved himself a new niche as a composer for film and theatre. He flourished into a versatile, inter-disciplinary artist, earning him two award nominations in the process. Long story short, the future was looking fruitful and creative.

 

Then out of the blue, De Haan found out he had– involuntarily – fathered a child. As a result, his day-to-day life fell somewhat into a tailspin. Just as De Haan got used to the idea of parenthood, he almost lost his mother to a stroke. “I was stuck in limbo, I felt I had lost my carefree existence. Just as I had grown somewhat accustomed to it, this thing with mom happened and upset everything once again. Two events – over which I had no control – shook my world. ‘Kyd’ was the magnetic term that clung to both.” KYD documents De Haan’s quest to preserve control over his own identity: the initial shock, the struggles he faced and ensuing redemption. And most importantly, all the wisdoms accumulated along the way. He engages the listener with his usual self-effacing sense of humor, his knack for offbeat-but-poignant reflections and that dense proclivity for conflating sonorous pop with lo-fi quirks

 

On KYD, De Haan reflects on his newly acquired role as a caretaker and tender, whilst secretly nourishing an inner wish to preserve his own childlike whims. “I was afraid, that with all these adult responsibilities, I was going to lose my own sense of playfulness. That, as a result, I wasn’t going to make a good record anymore. It kept me awake at night.” De Haan’s daughter actually helped him maintain that distinct frolicsome counterbalance to the weightier concerns; the very thing that made the AWKWARD i project so compelling to begin with.

 

KYD like its predecessors, often summons a chuckle, even in moments when De Haan reaches his psychological lows. Silent Disco, taking sonic cues from Randy Newman’s ‘Sail Away’, finds him fighting his own sanity amidst the carousing partygoers. Haul Away combines the drone of an Indian Surbahar with a tinge of grunge nostalgia. A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky is a near literal citation of a Lewis Carroll poem, with De Haan channeling his own wholesome soul search for untainted beauty. The idea manifested when he worked on music for a theatre-adaptation of Carroll’s famous novel Alice In Wonderland. 

 

Both sonically and conceptually, KYD antes up in both size, depth and scope. Opening cut Milkshakes Funnelcakes serves as a noble microcosm of the album’s main narrative. Starting with a downward spiral at his daughter’s first birthday party, the song claws its way upwards, ascending into this rousing existential crusade, unabashed of its magnanimous objective. A song that puts an assured hand on the listener’s shoulder: whatever obstacles and heartbreaks KYD will haul at you, they have since been framed and conquered. 

 

In hindsight, Milkshake Funnelcakes leaves a pleasant enough aftertaste to explore these innermost feelings: sometimes compassionate, sometimes confused – sometimes really really dark – but in doing so, the album never wallows in these sentiments. De Haan simply can’t help but to put his quick-witted and wry lyrical stamp on these songs. KYD has become a celebration and a victory, ticking all the boxes of what makes a great AWKWARD i record and then some. 

 

KYD will be out into the world in February '18 on Excelsior Recordings.

 

Contact

Management

awkwardii@gmail.com

Bookings

Bookings Netherlands:

AWKWARDii@gmail.com

Bookings Theater

Impresariaat Koperen Kees

Bob Wisselink

koperenkees@gmail.com

Bookings Germany/Switzerland/Austria:

Kumpels and Friends

Hanna Döring

hanna@kumpelsandfriends.com

Bookings Belgium:

Rock The Fox

Jef Verheijen

jef@rockthefox.be 

Label USA:

Antifragile Music

Tom Sarig

tom@ecgnyc.com 

 

 

Label / Press

Excelsior Recordings

kantoor@excelsior-recordings.com