Since 2013, Douglas Dare has been working in the field of tension between classical music and chamber pop, folk and avant-garde experiments, constantly developing new, astonishing perspectives - and singing with an exceptional voice that can really blow you away.
Over the past decade, he has shared the stage with greats such as Nils Frahm, Perfume Genius and Olafur Arnalds and was also invited by David Lynch and Robert Smith from The Cure for the festivals they curated in Manchester (MIF) and London (Meltdown) respectively. With his fourth album Omni, however, Douglas is now opening up a whole new chapter.
Everything sounds like a new beginning, everything is electrified. Above all, Robert Raths, the founder of Erased Tapes, encouraged Douglas to leave his traditional instruments behind and to exclude everything acoustic. He also moved away from the piano, which he had grown up with, and instead worked intensively with synthesizers and drum machines.
In fact, the new recordings are often reminiscent of the work of Arca or the recordings of the late SOPHIE - two artists for whom artistic expression is or was above all an act of liberation. "We also hung out in the studio together," says Douglas about the latter. "I was extremely impressed”.
And yet Omni is also infused with the intelligent storytelling, the sweep of the strings, the elegant richness of contrast and the almost fairytale-like moods that we know from Douglas - and which make his artistic signature so unique.
It's not that often that you hear a massive electro banger that could have come from Soho in the nineties, with vocal loops inspired by the experimental sounds of US pioneer Meredith Monk. Ultimately, with Omni, Douglas tries to reconcile all these different facets of his personality - songwriter, raver, observer, lover.
The result sounds queer to the max: seductive and sexy, lustful and completely free from the corset of binary categories.
"You even meet sailors on this album!" says Douglas in conclusion and has to laugh. "It really doesn't get any queerer than this."
