Minor Dents – Sitting With The Fish
Minor Dents, Brighton’s propulsive and distinctly trippy psychedelic pop trio, unveil their debut album Sitting With The Fish via Disasters By Choice, recorded and mixed with Julian Tardo of 4AD-signed post rock/shoegaze outfit Insides.
The six track album is a panoramic showcase for the band’s unique sonic collage, you can hear the motorik elements of the sound of Neu! and Can, the 60s psychedelia of Jefferson Airplaneand Silver Apples, Nick Drake’s otherworldly folk, the Canterbury scene, the punkier end of Blondie and ESG, Patti Smith’s Blake-esque visions, the oozing analogue synth sounds of Add N (to) X or Monte Cazazza, the woozy pop of Stereolab, My Bloody Valentine and Broadcast, and more.
The album starts with the mellow, descending tones of the title track, “Sitting With The Fish”, Finch’s vocals soon adding an eerier, more surreal sheen to proceedings before the band picks up the groove and takes it to the next level, Strachan’s cornet gliding across a solid bed of bass and drums. “Sheep Count” follows in a hazy reimagining of a French pop seduction, then the album’s lead single “I’d Like To Meet Her” builds around a waspy synth loop, turning it a spellbound paean to a mysterious ‘night owl’ entity, who makes “all the trees bend backwards” when she sings.
“Rituals” kicks off the second side in driving motorik fashion, frazzling around the edges as Finch’s vocals – “I wish… I wish… I had my own rituals,” sound more heavenly than ever. “Steep and Slow” takes the pace down for a warm and soporific interlude flavoured by soft, fuzzy analogue synth lines and hummed voices that tap into some of the laconic and melodic stylings of Pavement. The album’s closing track “Margate” is also its longest, clocking in close to eight minutes, and it’s a slow burner that evokes the waves breaking on the shingle, setting the scene before the murmured vocals retreat into the collage of tactile sound itself.
Improvisation is key to the Minor Dents modus operandi. Ryan Bollard and Holly Finch initially met playing in a free-wheeling Hastings-based band Column 258, who mix poetry and free-form jams, while Al Strachan’s long running Safehouse night is the longest running free improv session in Brighton. “That way of music is still at the fore of our way of making music,” says Strachan, “even if what we produce is sometimes honed down to sound something like a pop song.”
Live Dates:
28 Nov – The Lexington, London (support for Thorn)
1 Dec – The Jenny Lind, Hastings
Album launches:
11 Dec – Folklore Rooms, Brighton, with Sons of Viljems
12 Dec – Folklore Hoxton, London, with Sons of Viljems
#minordentsmusic