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This week. Different years. Same band. 30 years on stage. Brussels based. Jaune Toujours.
Some weeks are about the road as much as the destination.

2002 Paris. Two nights at La Maroquinerie. Petrol stations. Courtyards. The city waiting just beyond the venue doors.
2008 Canada. A ferry to Vancouver Island. A campsite where someone had turned the roof of a van into the perfect evening living room. And another UK gig where even the rear-view mirror became a camera.
2011 Winnipeg Folk Festival. Golf carts between stages. Interviews under prairie skies. Thousands of festivalgoers sharing the same songs.
2016 Bodvalenke. Hungary. New friends. A village audience waiting patiently before the first note.
2017 Stuttgart. A concert for Freunde & Refugees. Music crossing borders in more ways than one.
2019 Diksmuide. 4AD. Low lights. Loud brass. A room full of people leaning into the music.
2020 Outdoor concerts during Covid. Gardens. Care homes. Church squares. Finding ways to keep playing, even while keeping our distance.
2025 Uccle. Summer again. New faces in the band. Old rituals still intact. Including, apparently, another game of chess backstage.

Different countries. Different audiences. Different summers. Still packing the van. Still finding the next stage.
Different places. Same week, stretched across time. We don’t archive the past. We carry it. Still playing. Still moving. Still open to the next room.

“Humour is when you laugh anyway.”

Kali Som is a Roma traditional that Mec Yek has made its own over the years. A song of wit, resilience and irresistible rhythm.

This recording comes from ChouXS-Fest, one of those magical moments when live music found its way back outdoors.

 Turn the sound up and enjoy!

 "...Ils avaient enregistré un premier album en 2023, Sea of Stories, que nous avions applaudi dans ces pages. Et nous applaudissons tout autant ce deuxième, Unland. En anglais, un unland est une terre inoccupée, comme en allemand c'est « une terre inculte » ou plutôt « pas encore viabilisée ». Et 3'Ain les investit ces terres, avec ses musiques rêvées, improvisées, cinématographiques, intenses et intimes à la fois. Le trio nous raconte des histoires sans frontières qu'on écoute, attentifs, fascinés, séduits."

“…They had recorded their debut album in 2023, *Sea of Stories*, which we had praised in these pages. And we are just as enthusiastic about this second album, *Unland*. In English, an ‘unland’ is unoccupied land; in German, it is ‘uncultivated land’ or, rather, ‘land not yet developed’.” And 3’Ain settles on these lands with their dreamlike, improvised, cinematic music – intense and intimate at the same time. The trio tells us stories without borders, which we listen to attentively, fascinated and captivated.”

Three stars for Album Unland from Le Soir!

Thank you Jean-Claude Vantroyen and Le Soir for this review of the new Album Unland!

► Read the full article (in French) HERE or click on the PDF on the right.

Touring has never only been about the shows.

It’s also about the people you travel with, the small traditions that appear out of nowhere, the landscapes that stay with you, and the moments that no one planned but everyone remembers. Looking back more than twenty years later, Norway still feels like one long story full of music, laughter and unexpected beauty.

Norway. This week in 2003. 

One journey. One unforgettable detour.

Three concerts became many more. A concert hall for the European Broadcasting Union. An acoustic set beside a camper van. A breakfast concert on a bridge. A parade and a jam with musicians from different corners of the world.

In between?

Camping sites. Ferries. Mountains. Glaciers. Birthdays. Toy Viking helmets. Chess games. Wildflowers picked on the roadside. Beer that was… memorable for reasons beyond the taste. And an inflatable pink rabbit that somehow became part of the adventure.