Words by Steve Crawford
On Monday 6th March, This is Tmrw present Dutch Uncles on their return to the Hare and Hounds (Kings Heath) – playing in Birmingham as part of a 12 date UK tour promoting their fifth studio album Big Balloon.
Doors open at 7.30pm, tickets are £10 adv (plus booking fee). For direct gig info, including venue details and online ticket sales, click here.
Dutch Uncles formed in the Greater Manchester suburb of Marple in 2008, releasing their first eponymous album in 2009. A prodigious work rate has ensured a new album every two years, although Big Balloon is the first album not to feature founding member and guitarist Daniel Spedding who left the band in February 2015, shortly after O Shudder. Dutch Uncles have gigged without Spedding over the past two years, using a touring guitarist instead.
Alongside fellow Mancunians, Everything Everything (both grouped under the ‘Intelligent Manchester Scene’ banner), Dutch Uncles were amongst a clutch of bands that emerged, or at least started to find popularity, in the late noughties, favouring the use of unusual time signatures often combined with androgynous/falsetto vocals.
They have been influenced by the likes of minimalist composer Steve Reich (who turns out to be a fan of the band), Berlin era Bowie, 80s synth pop acts such as Japan, as well as the spikey, angular guitar sounds of post punk. Labelled as Art Rock, New Prog and the quite frankly off-putting Math Rock, Dutch Uncles play a twitchy, juddering, stop-start, idiosyncratic style of guitar/synth music that’s not without an element of funk underpinning it all.
Featured as one of the Guardian’s New Bands of the Day (No.691) in 2014, Dutch Uncles have racked up at least a dozen radio sessions in their nine year history. They are one of the main acts at this year’s BBC 6 Music Festival at the end of March, following the release of their latest single, ‘Oh Yeah!’, in February this year.
‘Oh Yeah!’ – Dutch Uncles
Dutch Uncles performs at the Hare & Hounds on Monday 6th March, as presented This Is Tmrw. For direct gig info and online tickets sales, click here.
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For more on Dutch Uncles, visit www.dutchuncles.co.uk
For more from the Hare & Hounds, including full event listing and online ticket sales, visit www.hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk
For more from This Is Tmrw, visit www.thisistmrw.co.uk