By Monk
Dez Dare is one of those artists not afraid to push the boundaries of musical exploration and integration so far beyond the boundaries of the existing maps that it would take even the most experienced and hardened of musical cartologists several millennia to fully discover the path he has trodden and redraw the landscapes as we know them. This mysterious explorer previously has set out to create the fuzziest, most unsettling psychedelic sounds he can muster: now, with this, his fourth album, he sets down an altogether more existentialist path and take things to even weirder and genre- never mind mind-bending places.
On his previous three albums Dare fought inner beasts and beats alike, waging a fuzz war and tackling the biggest topics the world has to face; doom scrolling, capitalist demagogues, a passionate dislike of the beach in summer. This time around, he leaves the sardonic frustration behind for sarcastic existentialism, zeroing in on the big philosophical questions, and the pedantic shards of nonsense that make up our existence. Once again piling up the synths, noise boxes and guitar pedals to almost dizzying heights, so much so that they threaten to topple over into the dark shadows they create, Dez set about building a soundscape of noise and ideas around the nature of reality, time, and how we interact with them. From the music you would play in your last moments, to the reverse Darwinism of modern society, to arguing with time itself, and very boring people talking at you, all is covered here for the aspiring existentialist.
Well, at least that is his aspiration. But it is a dream this innovative musical artist has fulfilled, and in proportions that would make Frank Lloyd Wright or Norman Foster grateful that they stuck to building enormous concrete and glass superstructures rather sonic ones. Very much taking his inspiration from original electro-punk innovators such as Devo, Talking Heads and even Kraftwerk, Dare vents the fury of a billion voices screaming into the void (sic), crafting layers of contrasting sounds together in a way that sounds as anarchic as it does dynamic and thoughtful, never mind thought-provoking.
I have followed Dare’s career for a few years now, as his DIY ethos has appealed to our similarity in that regard, and he has defiantly taken things to the next no-fucks-given level on this latest offering.
- ‘A Billion Goats. A Billion Sparks. Fin.’ is released today (Friday 1 March).
- Dez Dare plays live in April:
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