tomàn is a Belgian (Flemish) band, originally consisting of Jens, Wouter, Lode and Bram. A few months after releasing their second album they departed from the bass player Jens, who was replaced in 2007 by Senne. They make music you could describe as indie, while other people would call it post-rock. Their critically-acclaimed debut album, 'Catching a Grizzly Bear, Lesson One', was released in 2005.
Their debut album brought the guys to beautiful places like 4AD, AB, Muziekodroom, Rijdrop, Rhâââlovely festival, Dour festival, Feeërieën festival, Cactus club, Indie music festival, W2, De brakke grond, motel mozaique festival. Supporting bands like Karate, Death Cab for Cutie, The Album Leaf, Logh, b fleischmann, The New Year, 65daysofstatic, the berg sans nipple. June 2005 the guys recorded a silent session for sunday evening studio brussel radio programme duyster. Manta, an old song which had been reworked for this session, appeared on the duyster II compilation (pias, 2006). Berry Kamer of the vpro radio programme invited the band for a dwars session in Amsterdam. Miso, a Glaswegian club, asked Toman to appear on their mixtape number one, a charity cd featuring other artists such as efterklang.
One year after 'Catching a Grizzly Bear, Lesson One' (2005, zealrecords) tomàn released their second full length album 'Perhaps We Should Have Smoked The Salmon First'. It was recorded at de studio (www.destudio.be) by Dirk Miers who also plays trumpet on the album. It was mixed by lead singer wouter at home. Most songs were tried out live before being recorded. 7 days (with long nights) appeared to yield enough material to start mixing.
Chicago based indie label graveface (www.graveface.com), home of bands like daturah, dreamend and the appleseed cast, was moved by the album in this way that they decided to release the album in the USA.
tomàn was asked by the godfathers of young flemish bands poppunt (www.poppunt.be) to record a raymond van het groenewoud cover for their 5 year anniversary compilation and concert. toman chose 2 meisjes to give them their own twist. october 2006, all contributions were captured by national
television.
End of February, early March 2007, they set off for their first european tour together with their brothers in arms Madensuyu. They played in D, NL, F, CH, A, I and LU.
They also have a demo-record called 'it's important for the experiment that you continue'. Live they still play songs that were on this demo.
www.toman.be
www.zealrecords.com
www.graveface.com
www.myspace.com/tomantheband