Description
Label Review.
2017 album.
Our Overview.
Manchester’s idiosyncratic art-popologists Dutch Uncles formed on 2008 and featuring singer/pianist Duncan Wallis, guitarists Pete Broadhead and Daniel Spedding, bassist Robin Richards, and drummer Andy Proudfoot, return with ‘Big Balloon’, their new studio album, out on Memphis Industries.
Taking musical inspiration from influences as eclectic as Steve Reich and XTC, Talking Heads Low-era David Bowie, some slightly-less fashionable records belonging to their Dads and East European Techno, Big Balloon doesn’t follow a single narrative, functioning instead as ten distinct pieces, each tackling a different topic, including austerity cuts, therapy, fried chicken, paranoia and coming to terms with loneliness.
‘Big Balloon’ is the latest chapter in dutch uncles’ brilliantly witty, hip-swiveling, left-field adventures and was recorded in manchester’s old granada tv studios where sex pistols and joy division made their televisual debuts. The title track Big Balloon was the nucleus for the rest of the album “The song has a simple message: to be content with who you are,” says vocalist and lyricist Duncan Wallis. “The song helped steer the direction of the songs written afterwards which became the album Big Balloon,” adds composer and bassist Robin Richards. “It reminded us of the potency of the electric guitar, and brought them back as focal instruments on the record.”