Formats
ERATP057CD - CD
4050486109168ERATP057LP - LP
4050486109175
Details
London-based singer-songwriter Douglas Dare releases his debut album Whelm on Erased Tapes. With the piano at the core, Dare vocalises his short prose and poems to a backdrop of drums, electronics and brass… It was in November last year that the duo Douglas Dare and producer/percussionist Fabian Prynn decided to record an album, and by January they were listening to it. Finding themselves out of the home-studio for the first time, the pair recorded much of the album in Flood’s studio Assault & Battery in West London. Other touches were recorded back in Fabian’s home. With the comfort of familiar songs from his live set, such as Clockwork, Caroline and London’s Rose, the session was equally driven by the excitement of creating brand new tracks like Nile, Swim and Unrest in a new environment. The recordings began with finding the perfect piano – a grand piano, battered and bruised, but with a beautiful sound. Flood’s studio provided a treasure trove of gear, including Dare’s favourite new instrument, the Mini Moog, which inspired bass parts on tracks like Unrest. Prynn engineered, produced and mixed the record, and with just the two of them involved from start to finish, their vision for the album remained clear and unclouded. Lyrically, Whelm is often written from other people’s perspectives, with a few of the songs stemming from historical events. London’s Rose for example came from a poem Douglas wrote about the use of underground stations as bomb shelters during WWII; whilst Whitewash addresses the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, and Clockwork was inspired by the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient analogue computer found in the ocean. Despite the weight to some of these subjects, Dare has always enjoyed the use of plain language that is simple and very human. Most of his songs begin with words, as it’s the stories that inspire the music. Whelm will be released incl. poetry book Nine Poems on CD, LP and Download via Erased Tapes on May 12, 2014.
Tracks
01. Clockwork
02. Nile
03. Repeat
04. Caroline
05. Whelm
06. Unrest
07. Lungful
08. Whitewash
09. Swim
10. London?s Rose
Press
"it's bittersweet, raw and honest" The Quietus. 'Very strange and wonderful... One to watch' Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC 6 Music. 'Hard to argue with this kind of emotional resonance'
Under The Radar.
'The opposite of a fanfare arrival, and all the more powerful for it
8/10 The Line Of Best Fit