Utopia Defeated (LP)
D.D Dumbo – aka 28-year old Oliver Perry – lives in a room attached to an old horse stables on the outskirts of the small city Castlemaine, one and a half hours north of Melbourne. “The building is owned by a couple who keep their garden tools in it,” says Perry. “But there’s one room that’s insulated and semi-functional.” The space also doubles as Perry’s studio. “There’s definitely some hermit vibes,” he says of the solitary set-up.
That D.D Dumbo’s fantastical debut album, Utopia Defeated, can be traced to a single, spartan room, seems especially perverse. Across ten songs, Utopia Defeated conjures a vivid, wide-eyed musical landscape teeming with nervous energy and exotic evocations of the world at large. Backed by skittering percussion, the signature elastic bounce of Perry’s 12-string guitar, and a fanciful quiver of obtuse sounds, Utopia Defeated hinges on Perry’s expressive voice, and the dissonance of an artist compelled to question his position in the natural world.
The resulting sonic universe is a collision of blues licks, echoes of world music, strident ‘80s pop, the kinetic energy of dance music, and splashes of outsider art akin to Captain Beefheart, one of D.D Dumbo’s touchstones.