| The Dø | |
|---|---|
The Dø performing at the Paléo Festival in 2008. |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | France, Helsinki, Finland |
| Genres | Folk rock, indie rock |
| Years active | 2007–present |
| Labels | Get DOwn! Cinq7 (Fr) Six Degrees (US) AK Music Video (Tu) Andante Vs Massala (Pt) Ministry of Sound (De) Rockhopper Music (Fi) Border Music (Se) Shock Records (Au) Bang Music (Be) |
| Website | Official website |
| Members | |
| Dan Levy Olivia Bouyssou Merilahti |
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The Dø is a French/Finnish indie pop band founded in Paris in 2005. The band is Olivia Merilahti (singer and musician) and Dan Levy (multi-instrumentalist). The duo has been backed on stage by three different drummers (Jérémie Pontier 2007-2008, José Joyette 2008-2009, Pierre Belleville since 2009). Their first studio album A Mouthful topped the French charts in 2008, making them the first French act singing in English to reach that position.
Contents |
Olivia Merilahti and Dan Levy met in 2005 while recording the music for a French movie Empire of the Wolves directed by Chris Nahon and produced by Gaumont.
They released their first piece under the name The Dø a few months later: a 3-track EP including The Bridge is Broken for a contemporary dance ballet titled Scène d’amour by Finnish choreographer Juha-Pekka Marsalo. They kept on working for cinema (The Passenger, awarded at the Festival d'Angers and the Festival d'Aubagne, Wild Camp, and Darling), dance (Prologue, Perle and Cinderella by Juha-Pekka Marsalo, as well as poetry lectures by Carolyn Carlson) and theatre (Laure by Colette Peignot).
They used their free time to write the songs that would feature on their first album, A Mouthful. The band's myspace page was opened in 2007. The first four songs released online (The Bridge is Broken, At Last, On My Shoulders and Playground Hustle) quickly created a buzz that brought them to play a series of sold-out concerts in Paris. In December 2007, they opened the festival Les Transmusicales de Rennes.
Meanwhile, they signed on the indie label Cinq/7, and the song On My Shoulders was their first single, also used in an Oxford-notepads commercial.
The band's name is derived from the first note of the solfège scale, and is pronounced as the English word "dough", with a long "o" sound. It is written with the letter Ø (slashed o), and the "D" often in lower-case to resemble a half note.
A Mouthful was released in France in January 2008. The rest of Europe and Australia released it later that year . It was very well received by critics and the public, ranking n°1 in the French charts on the first week. It was acclaimed as an eclectic record, drawing inspiration from various genres as pop, folk, rock or hip-hop, while keeping an integrity and an original approach.
The first single from the album was On my shoulders, followed by At last and Stay (Just a little bit more). The music video for At last was directed by Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus.
The band went on tour in Europe and Australia for over 200 shows. They spent summer 2008 playing at most of the biggest festivals in Europe (Eurockéennes de Belfort, Paleo, Provinssirock, Vieilles Charrues, Roskilde, Main Square Festival, Pukkelpop...), flew to Australia for the V Festival in spring 2009, and spent two weeks in America, playing from Mexico to Canada, NYC to Los Angeles, in September 2009.
A Mouthful was officially released in the US in April 2010 on Six Degrees Records, including 3 bonus tracks.
In December 2010, the band released a video for the first promotional single 'Dust It Off'. Their second album entitled Both Ways Open Jaws was released in some parts of Europe on Monday, March 7, 2011, and in France on Wednesday, March 9, 2011. Beginning late October and ending in mid-November, the album was released worldwide.