Doprah’s album is finally here. “Wasting” is as good as we all hoped it would be. Here’s “Omni” from it:
The Christchurch band seemed poised to release a debut album two years ago just as they were riding a wave of international recognition which included being selected to open for Lorde at her post-Grammy’s Auckland Laneway add-on show in 2014 and some overseas trips.
A brush with a more commercially-focused overseas label and resulting delays could have ended the band, but instead they’ve spent the intervening years simply refining and updating the content of what would become “Wasting”.
It’s a great listen, a satisfying psychedelic world to escape into, and even more hallucinatory and experimental when listened to as a whole than the earlier singles indicated.
People are usually quick to add Portishead/ Massive Attack references when describing the spaced out ‘trip-hop’ sound of their songs. But they also seem to me to have as much in common with a Dunedin band active 20 years ago they’ve probably never heard of – Mink.
Mink were also a sonic creation of an auteur-musician-producer and a cast of creative personalities including songwriter/ vocalist/ keyboard player Demarnia Lloyd. LLoyd and Indira Force share a similar effortlessly weightless vocal style: ghostly, soulful and perfect companions for a journey into the psychedelic margins of the electro-pop universe.
When Indira Force’s voice is paired with Steven John Marr’s almost sotto voce lower register vocals (as on “Omni” here) the light & dark interplay adds another element to the atmosphere of the beautiful doomed wasteland of Doprah’s stellar debut.
LPs should be available in record stores now, or from the Flying Out online store.
Pop Lib 