Supporting Grimes on her European tour, and then taking to the stage in United
Kingdom for the acclaimed Dot To Dot Festival, now's probably the right time to
introduce Doldrums. If you're
already familiar with Doldrums, you may have heard his circulated EP 'Empire
Sound', which was released in 2011 on No Pain In Pop. Electronica is the
music of discussion here, with Doldrums releasing many tracks under different pseudonyms,
and collaborating with artists such as Grimes and Portishead. One of which
is the distorted manic eeriness of 'Painted
Black', surfacing in 2010. Yes, it’s now 2012 and Doldrums has of course
been picked up by a record label - Souterrain Transmissions (Zola Jesus, Moon Duo and EMA). Born in Toronto and
now based in Montreal, Doldrums uses a spectacular sound of tribal percussion,
glitch beats and an array of samples to create his dynamic music.
There’s a certain edge of intensity when listening to Doldrums. Jump Up has all the beats
and progressions to cause comparisons with Gold Panda, with all the hooks and
melodies to gather commercial success. He has certainly moved on from the atmospherically
tuned Empire Sound EP, taking sampling to the next level with these layers of
soundscapes. It's an excellent listen and the vocal is surprisingly clear among
the compact sounds of handclaps, screeches, reversed noises and synthesizers.
Doldrums is an artist to look out for in the future, especially with one of his
biggest fans being fellow Canadian Grimes.
~Eddie
