SOUNDTRACK: D.D DUMBO-“Walrus,” “Tropical Oceans” (Field Recordings, May 15, 2014).
I don’t know when people started looping drums and guitar to make fuller sounds. I guess it’s been a decade or so. But this recording from 2014 seems positively ancient. And yet D.D Dumbo uses the technology perfectly. And in this Field Recording [D.D Dumbo: Looping Sounds In An Austin Alleyway] this one guy sounds huge!
Mystery seems to swirl around D.D Dumbo. We’d heard all sorts of crazy rumors about this solo musician; namely, that Dumbo is a modern-day nomad whose only worldly possessions are his guitar and some crazy customized pedals. But once he arrived for one of our SXSW Backyard Sessions, here’s what we discovered: Dumbo was born outside of Melbourne, Australia (birth name: Oliver Hugh Perry). He performs with a 12-string electric guitar, a simple drum set-up and some loop pedals. And he prefers to let his eclectic, drone-filled music speak for itself — so, alas, no comment on the nomad rumors.
As “Walrus” opens, he plays a nifty guitar riff that is part sliding notes and part harmonics. These are looped. He adds some vocal “ahhs” and “eeehs” and then puts in a very simple drum beat. When the song properly starts, his style of playing reminds me of the West African guitarists I’ve heard on Tiny Desk. It’s slinky and repetitive, almost turning into a droning rhythm. He sings, but I’m not even sure if there are actual words.
The song builds and shrinks as he adds previously looped parts and it stops perfectly when he needs to do a quick guitar section before it starts again.
If you listen closely to his music, though, one thing is certain: It’s hard to nail down Dumbo’s influences. As he performed for a curious crowd at Austin’s Friends & Neighbors during SXSW, we heard numerous global destinations in his music — including stops in North African deserts, as well as a jaunt to the American South for a touch of the blues. Here, D.D Dumbo showcases two uniquely minimal songs: an unreleased song called “Walrus,” and “Tropical Oceans,” from his recent self-titled EP.
“Tropical Oceans,” starts with some scratched guitar strings as a percussive sound. He builds t he ambiance by tapping his guitar body to create waves of sounds. After the drum beats, he begins playing and singing the song proper.
[READ: June 26, 2014] “Usl at the Stadium”
So Usl is the name of a character in this story. It’s a strange name and kind of distracts from the story somewhat because why would anyone be named that?
This story actually has nothing to do with his name, so it could have been something else and we wouldn’t even think about his name.
This story is about Usl at a Yankee game. The Sunday game started at 2PM and Usl had gone. He had fallen asleep and was featured on the Jumbotron intermittently between 4:02 and 4:09. Usl became an internet sensation because the announcers had talked about him while he was on screen.
So he was getting calls from newspapers and other places for “celebrities.” (more…)
I Just Read About That... 