Dama Scout are Danny Grant (drums), Luciano Rossi (bass) and Eva Liu (vocals, guitar), a hybrid London/Glasgow band who have released their new single ‘Dan Dan Bub’ after a break of over three years.
The track has, at its heart, an undulating alt-pop song with pulsing bass, warm-sweeping chords and a charmingly hypnotic tune, but superimposed over this, and shot through the song, are unsettling elements which make the ground feel unsteady. Jarring guitar pokes through from time to time, like walking on a deep, plush carpet and then stepping on a piece of Lego. Dark clouds of interference sometimes gather overhead and threaten a storm that never quite comes, and the closer you look at this Constable painting of a song the more you notice someone has painted Hieronymus Bosch figures all over it. The lyrics also have a heady, surreal haze to them with lines like “Crash crash into a capsule, Start pixelating, Interview memories again, Hide hide in my brain”.
The accompanying video, put together by the band, is also a visual feast featuring in no particular order, a white-masked and hooded singer, jumps cuts between sea creatures, shimmering paintings, shifting sand animation, waving arm inflatables and a jelly head and shoulders first in a glass case and then as a giant monolith on a distant planet. All brain tingling stuff which reminded me of the disturbing short film by David Lynch created for the Lumière and Company project in 1995. It’s a real treat for eyes ears with image and sound married together in a delicious, devious, comforting, destabilising concoction. More please.
Dama Scout socials: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Bandcamp
Dan Dan Bub Lyrics:
Crash crash into a capsule
Start pixelating
Interview memories again
Hide hide in my brain
Oh oh Oh oh
Side by side we walk uncertain terrified
Neither of us talk aloud
Do you think it’s so real
Carefully made out of marble
Cool and hateful eyes
Drown in the clouds
And I hope that you will someday too
Think of me maybe
Dressed in heavy spells
Drown in the clouds
Pocket future favourites
Tomorrow doesn’t exist
Bursting bubbles alone
Squeeze hopefulness
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Hand in hand we look uncertain terrified
Hand in hand we look uncertain terrified
Hand in hand we look uncertain terrified
Neither of us sleep at night
Do you think it’s so real, carefully
Made out of marble
Cool and hateful eyes
Drown in the clouds
And I hope that you will someday too
Think of maybe
Dressed in heavy spells
Drown in the clouds
Review by Paul F Cook
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