Dutch Uncles, Manchester’s much-revered electro art rock quartet, return with their long-awaited sixth album, True Entertainment.

Taking inspiration from Yellow Magic Orchestra, Prince, Steely Dan, Ennio Morricone, The Blue Nile, Kate Bush and Roxy Music, "True Entertainment behaves like it knows it's been away for some time, and doesn’t apologise for that," jokes vocalist / lyricist Duncan Wallis. "Ultimately, it's written with the mindset that on our sixth album, we’re only in competition with ourselves when it comes to finding satisfaction in our craft."

True to this mantra, True Entertainment bears some of the most delightfully fun Dutch Uncles music to date; paired with some of their most existential and introspective lyrics. What is success? Am I enough? How can I better? (and can I afford to be better?)

The title was a DJ name bestowed upon Wallis by guitarist Peter Broadhead. Wallis, an in-demand DJ and compare in his native city, wrote the acid house and Sign O’ The Times-era Prince-influenced title track when reflecting on the awkwardness he sometimes feels when he’s recognised as the singer in a band while working one of his many public-facing jobs.

While vocalist Wallis and bassist Robin Richards remain Dutch Uncles’ principle composers, the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 prompted other members to contribute musical ideas: the result being their most collaborative album to date. This is evidenced further by Henry Broadhead and Neil Wright (live synth player and live guitarist, respectively) stepping up to production duties alongside the band themselves. The album also sees contributions from Anna Prior of Metronomy and Jonathan Higgs of Everything Everything. Henry Broadhead mixed the album with drummer Andrew Proudfoot, and it was mastered by Matt Colton (Pet Shop Boys, Christine And The Queens et al).

True Entertainment is the long-awaited follow up to Big Balloon (2017), an album which spawned three playlisted singles on BBC Radio 6 Music and enjoyed widespread acclaim from the likes of Uncut ("a high flying triumph" 8/10), The Guardian ("its songs barge in with urgency" 4*), The Quietus, DIY, Exclaim!, Q, Under the Radar and many, many more.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Dutch Uncles are unmistakeable, Duncan's voice atop the rapidly shifting, bright synth-indie stomp is both instantaneously recognisable and always welcome, and it's possible that 'True Entertainment' is the best example of this yet. Cleverly written, sonically expansive and soaringly melodic, without a doubt the perfect example of the Dutch Uncles sound.

TRACK LISTING

True Entertainment
Damascenes
Tropigala (2 To 5)
Poppin’
Exit Row
I’m Not Your Dad
Deep End
In Salvia
End Belief
Dead Letter

Robin Richards' "The Earth Asleep // Birdsong" comprises his modern classical soundtracks to two eponymous films: Clara Casian’s documentaries about the 2011 Japan tsunami and 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, respectively.

The Earth Asleep (2021) addresses the ways in which our exposure to extreme live-trauma in the form of rolling news and citizen reportage has resulted in an inability to process grief at a manageable, human scale. Film, poetry and live music intertwine to conjure a pathway by which the human soul might navigate unseen astral dimensions. As the earth sleeps, past and present merge in this live rhythmic montage. The soundtrack features members of two Mercury Prize-nominated bands: Chris Illingworth of GoGo Penguin on piano; and Michael Spearman of Everything Everything on drums and percussion.

An amusement park in the Ukrainian city of Pripyat was due to be opened on the 1st May 1986, but the Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred just a few miles away on 26th April. The park’s owners opened the park for a couple of hours the following day for the people of Pripyat before the city was evacuated. Eerie images of the deserted Pripyat Amusement Park now permeate the visual representation of the city’s desolation. Combining the immediacy and energy of live musical performance with the visual impact of film, Birdsong: Stories from Pripyat weaves personal and scientific narratives filmed within the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Combining the immediacy and energy of live musical performance with the visual impact of film, Birdsong: Stories from Pripyat aims to revisit a dramatic and devastating historical event using personal and scientific narratives to draw out the tensions and truths at play in our collective, cultural memories of this unfathomable event.

Manchester’s idiosyncratic art-popologists Dutch Uncles return with Big Balloon, their new studio album, on 17th February 2017 on Memphis Industries.

Big Balloon is the latest chapter in Dutch Uncles’ brilliantly witty, hip-swiveling, left-field adventures. Taking musical inspiration from Kate Bush's The Red Shoes, Low-era David Bowie, some slightly-less fashionable records belonging to their Dads and East European techno, it's the fifth Dutch Uncles studio album and the follow-up to 2015's acclaimed O Shudder.

Functioning as ten distinct pieces, each tackling a different topic, including austerity cuts, therapy, fried chicken, paranoia and coming to terms with loneliness, Big Balloon is Dutch Uncles’ finest album to date, taking listeners on an exhilarating cerebral journey.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Bracing, inventive, catchy electronic-tinged indie at it's very finest. Never afraid to stray from conventions but managing to keep the hooks flowing, DU deliver both a benchmark and a triumph.

TRACK LISTING

1. Big Balloon
2. Baskin’
3. Combo Box
4. Same Plane Dream
5. Achameleon
6. Hiccup
7. Streetlight
8. Oh Yeah
9. Sink
10. Overton

Three albums into their career, Manchester’s Dutch Uncles - a group who pitched their tents firmly in pop’s leftfield with their eponymous first album, before releasing their Memphis Industries debut ‘Cadenza’ in 2011 - have made another huge step forward with ‘Out Of Touch In The Wild’.

This is a refined version of Dutch Uncles doing what they do best - making labyrinthine pop of Escher-like complexity and crystal clarity.

“Coming from the generation of bookish Manchester bands striving to throw off Northern Indie’s boorish image, Dutch Uncles look set to graduate at the top of the class” - NME

“The Manchester band returns with a refreshingly intellectual approach to merging guitar-based indiepop with electronic dance” - The Independent

“Dissonant, xylophone-pocked electro-pop - sublime” - The Sunday Times

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Excellent. By far their best record. Watch out Field Music, Dutch Uncles are coming!

Ryan says: The local lads are back with their third album & it's an incredible one! Clever math-pop with intricate, intertwining melodies underneath solid indie-pop songs and intelligent rhythms.

Manchester-based Dutch Uncles are sub-20 year olds, pulling funny faces, wearing checked shirts, and playing tighter than their drainpipe jeans. The first single "Face In" was produced by Gareth Parton (The Go! Team, Foals, Pete And The Pirates), and the rest of this debut album was recorded in a stormy ten day session in Hamburg, Germany. Call it prog-pop, mathrock, indie, jingle-jangle... John Kennedy XFM said 'Trying to pin down the sound of Dutch Uncles is tricky… somehow they are new wave, no wave, post punk and pop all at once. They have the well drilled groove of The Strokes, the chiming African inflected guitars of Vampire Weekend, the otherness of Shudder To Think but then there's the repetition of Steve Reich and the singular singing of Duncan Paton. These ten songs are just the start. Dutch Uncles are only opening their wings.'