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biography / portrait

Daap (meaning "baptism") plays old, Nordic hymns and folk music from 1600-1700, transformed into rock and world. The group comes from a small town, Vadsø, in Northeastern, Arctic Norway. The town has throughout the history been housing the indegionous Saami people, Norwegian settlers, Finnish immigrants and Russian traders. This, and the religious movement of the North-Nordic preacher Lästadius has made an important impact on the people of the town. Now the small town is represented by over 50 different nationalities and cultures. Among them, lots of refugees. Both the history and the present culture is what Daap want to reflect. We have used a strange combination of Nordic hymns, Congolesian songs and rhythms and 70-influented rock. We have been using different musicians, from Hammond-rockers to a Congolesian singer/percussionist. The Finnish immigrants from the 1800 developed their own kind of Finnish language, called "kvensk" in this Arctic area. This language is now forgotten in many places. The singer of Daap does not understand Finnish, but uses the language in some songs as he has been learned. Also, the languages in the songs are many; Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Congolesian and french. The instruments on the recordings are an old pump organ, Hammondorgan, analog synth, guitars, drums, bass and vocals. (source: www.myspace.com/daap)