Douglas Dare

Douglas Dare Brighton

Douglas Dare live in Brighton at Dust on 1st October 2024!
Get tickets above, or from SeeTickets.

There was a moment onstage, at the end of his most recent tour, when Douglas Dare knew it was time for a shift. He’d released his angelic third album Milkteeth in February 2020, a month before the world turned upside down. A deeply personal, paean to longing and acceptance, the record “was all about me trying to make my parents proud,” he says.

The subsequent shows were among the first to be cancelled. By the time Douglas finally got out on the road, he began to feel unusually vulnerable – just him and his autoharp, under the spotlight. He was a different artist now to the one who’d written such gentle, stripped-bare songs about wanting to please his family. After his debut show in his hometown of Bridport, Dorset, with his father in the audience for the first time, Douglas closed the chapter. He wanted to leap into the unknown, to feel completely free, and his new music was to follow suit.

“I was like, I want to be able to dance to this,” he says. “And I’ve never said that before about my music.”

Since 2013, Douglas has blurred classical, chamber-pop, folk and avant-garde to dazzling effect, with a startling voice that can stop you in your tracks. It’s why he’s played with luminaries like Nils Frahm, Perfume Genius and Ólafur Arnalds, and was selected by David Lynch and The Cure’s Robert Smith for their respective cultural festivals in Manchester (MIF) and London (Meltdown).

But Douglas’s fourth album, Omni, is a bold rebirth. Encouraged by Erased Tapes founder Robert Raths, he decided to step away from acoustic instruments, especially the piano he grew up playing, and swapped them for synths and drum machines. Label mate Daniel Brandt (of Brandt Brauer Frick) appears on production duties and the beat on ‘Mouth to Mouth’ is the handiwork of Rival Consoles. The exceptional ‘Teach Me’, meanwhile, was made with long standing collaborator and 4AD’s in-house producer, Fabian Prynn. Douglas’s vision was one of ecstasy and euphoria. “I wanted it to be f****** loud and immersive,” he explains.

His new music has much in common with Arca and the late SOPHIE, two artists for whom self-expression meant liberation. “I got to hang out in the studio with her,” says Douglas of the latter musician, “the way she made music made a big impression on me.” And yet Omni is steeped in the kind of deft storytelling, sweeping strings, elegant contrasts and fairytale atmosphere that marks Douglas out as a crucial and singular voice. It’s not often you hear a strutting electro banger that could have been straight out of 90s Soho, with vocal loops inspired by US experimentalist Meredith Monk.

For Douglas, Omni is about reconciling all those different sides of himself – the songwriter, the raver, the lover, the observer. He has a renewed confidence in his vocals, and testament to their strength, Daniel Brandt encouraged him to use the raw, unvarnished demos for the final songs: “This was me, sat at home, holding the mic, no pop shield, no booth,” says Douglas. He’s also using his falsetto range and creative effects like AutoTune for the first time. The latter reflects the AI robot he’s inhabiting on ‘Teach Me’ – a song that’s another masterstroke of dark versus delicate. “Your sweet seduction soothes me,” he purrs, which could just as much have been the mantra for the entire album.

It’s a hugely queer record: seductive, sexy, lusty, untethered from the genre binary. “It’s even got sailors on it!” laughs Douglas. “You don’t get more queer than that.” https://douglasdare.bandcamp.com/

+ Support

Upcoming Love Thy Neighbour shows:
18042024 – Ariel Sharratt and Mathias Kom of The Burning Hell. The Hope & Ruin
19042024 – House of All. The Hope & Ruin
21042024 – Martin Turner ex Wishbone Ash. Lewes Con Club
22042024 – Maya De Vitry. The Prince Albert
26042024 – Personal Trainer & Pom Poko. Concorde 2
27042024 – The Undercover Hippy. Patterns
28042024 – Focus. Lewes Con Club
28042024 – Roger McGough. Komedia
30042024 – Roddy Woomble & Almost Nothing. Komedia
01052024 – Jane Weaver. Concorde 2
01052024 – Funke & The Two Tone Baby. The Hope & Ruin
03052024 – Drahla. The Hope & Ruin
04052024 – USA Nails. The Hope & Ruin
05052024 – Still Corners. Chalk
05052024 – A Certain Ratio. Concorde 2
09052024 – Acid Mothers Temple. The Hope & Ruin
21052024 – Caitlin Rose & Hollow Hand. The Prince Albert
22052024 – Dana Gavanski. The Prince Albert
24052024 – Project Gemini. The Green Door Store
26052024 – Hammok. The Crofter’s Rights, Bristol
28052024 – Hammok. The Hope & Ruin
29052024 – The Lovely Eggs. Chalk
29052024 – Gen and the Degenerates. The Prince Albert
31052024 – El Moono. The Hope & Ruin
03062024 – Mildlife. Patterns
04062024 – EXEK. The Hope & Ruin
05062024 – Amelia Coburn. The Folklore Rooms
07062024 – Ex-Easter Island Head. The Hope & Ruin
08062024 – Chastity Belt. The Hope & Ruin
08062024 – Frankie Archer. Komedia Studio
11062024 – Mike Watt’s Il Sogno Del Marinaio. The Hope & Ruin
14062024 – Lewsberg. The Hope & Ruin
15062024 – The Reds, The Pinks, The Purples. The Hope & Ruin
18072024 – Love. Concorde 2
21082024 – Wednesday. Chalk
31082024 – Jake Xerxes Fussell. Lewes Constitutional Club
26092024 – Melt Banana. Concorde 2
24102024 – The Tom Robinson Band. Concorde 2
01112024 – Douglas Dare. Dust
06112024 – Lack of Afro. Patterns.
23112024 – The Orb + Ozric Tentacles

Douglas Dare Brighton

Douglas Dare Brighton