Dosh

Tommy (Anticon)

By Erin Wolf
Published: April 18th, 2010 | 7:00am

“Ambient” noise is rarely equated with excitement, yet percussionist and knob twiddler Martin Dosh has unwittingly twisted the sometimes confusing definition of ambience into something genuinely exciting within his prolific catalogue. His is a jazzy, loopy, percussion-driven, calculated mess with skronk and even dirge-y shoegazer guitars that add dimension to modern and experimental pop rock.

Dosh’s fifth release Tommy moves at a continuous pace, its first track (the slightly prog-y “Subtractions”) alive with percussive vocals, vibraphone, and synthesizers. His sound moves quickly with fluid drum lines, like little clouds chasing each other in advanced time lapse skyscapes. Dosh plays with drums like his intent is to create a world music environment, but the percussive rise and fall into haphazard jazz stylings pleasantly confuse the listener.

Second track, “Town Mouse,” takes the jazz element even further by adding a wee bit of smooth saxophone. A bit odd at first, the sax fits with the double-time trip-hop drums. “Yer Face” continues the ambient tone nicely with spacious piano and airy vocals, and annexes the honey-sweet slide guitar and sparkling atmospheres in “Number 41,” which features longtime pal and collaborator Andrew Bird.

Dosh’s compositions are always naturally quirky but on Tommy, he smoothes over his sound and makes a Ulrich Schnauss–turned prog effort on the vapor-tinged “Airlift.” Final track “Gare de Lyon” is near doom metal with cymbal crashes and chugga-chugga guitars. Naturally eclectic and delightfully far-flung, Tommy will be another one in the pocket for Dosh fans and for true music nerds who like their listening to be diverse, ever changing, and engaging. Tommy isn’t meant to be absorbed so much as it is meant to gently pull and push the listener into new ways of thinking, such as how genres blend and how musical composition will truly forever be grounded in percussion.

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