Danalogue is the solo creative career of producer and synthesist Dan Leavers. You may know his work from the band The Comet Is Coming, which he founded, and is also one-half of Soccer96. While The Comet Is Coming straddles all kinds of music genres, Soccer96 is more electronic psych-jazz, and strangely, the latter descriptor is slightly closer to Danalogue’s sound. My pitch for Danalogue is “if Boards of Canada and Four Tet fully embraced their psychedelic synth side”. I say that because Dan cites 1970’s German kosmische (Kraut-rock) as an influence on his sound.
‘Moebius Triptych’ is the latest single ahead of Danalogue’s debut album. The spacey, wiry, and bendy lead synths wiggle and wane over a mixture of acoustic and electronic beats. The beats are jazzy, brushed percussion loops that are layered to take the song towards the dancefloor. It’s a space disco astral projection mixed with some experimental riffs on retro synths, and it’s final minute concludes in an epic B-movie climax. Chords rise, synths pitch-bend upwards, and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as the intensity of the synth and drums increases. This music is designed to loosen the body and the mind, and it feels like it’s telling a story through sound, too.
The single is taken from the forthcoming album ‘Teleportations’, due for release on 29th May. Expect more science-fiction drenched space synth jazz, dancefloor moments, and nods to deep house, new age ambience, and experimental sounds. The album has been designed to run as a single journey, rather than have standalone songs, and comes with a short story to expand on the album’s narrative. Danalogue argues that music is an act of shared transportation. The album is written around this idea, where an advanced lifeform could converge brainwaves into an iridescent stream of consciousness and slingshot it across space. ‘Moebius Triptych’ is track four of ten, so I imagine we’re bouncing around unknown worlds at lightspeed. Honestly, that’s how the track sounds to me, anyway!
If you are a synth gearhead, you’ll also be amused. The album was recorded using mostly vintage, analogue sounds. Danalogue’s main tools were the Roland Juno-60, SH-09, Jupiter 4, and the Oberheim. Whilst this was an aesthetic choice, as it enabled the story to consider bridging space and time, it also allowed Dan to play with different periods of electronic music and embrace the limitations and imperfections of the vintage gear. Often, those quirks give the sound its character, so I think it was an inspired decision.
‘Moebius Triptych’ is out now. You can pre-order the album ‘Teleportations’ on Bandcamp. Danalogue will be performing an album release show on 4th June at The Waiting Room in London. You can purchase tickets for the release show now.
Support Higher Plain Music
Higher Plain Music is part of the Higher Plain Network – a one-man indie media project. If you like what I do, please consider supporting me via Patreon for as little as $1/£1 a month. In return, you’ll receive additional perks for supporting me, such as behind-the-scenes content and free downloads. You can also donate using PayPal. Sharing the website helps too or using the affiliate buy now links on reviews. I receive a few pence per Amazon sale. All your support will enable me to produce better content, more often. I’d love to make this a full-time media network and your support can make that happen. Thank you.
Discover more from Higher Plain Music
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
