DOG CHOCOLATE – So Inspired, So Done In (w/ Poster & Lyric Booklet) – LP – Black BioVinyl [JAN 23]

LP – Limited Edition Black BioVinyl with glossy A3 Poster & Colourful 8-page Lyric / Drawing Booklet.

After 7 strange years of relative silence, and 13 years of being a band, Dog Chocolate have returned with So Inspired, So Done In. Their fourth album is their most focused, cohesive and song-y yet. They still sound like a bin full of wasps, but now the bin has double-cream or a Viennetta or something at the bottom. While many of the 16 songs on here barely make it past the 3-minute mark, each one is bursting with all the textures and colours of an office cupboard: full of old sweets, fluorescent markers, and multiple ways to fix paper together.

Thematically, a lot of ground is covered, with songs tackling subject matter as diverse as overheard conversations, healing fungal toenails, the Rogerian concept of the Actualising Tendency, bronze age living conditions, dreaming songs into being and human-plant relations. Work (and anti-work) is a recurring theme, as is artistic inspiration and burnout. Dog Chocolate revel in the mundane and incidental, to explore bigger, existential questions. Recorded and mixed by POZIs Toby Burroughs and mastered by Sofia Lopes, So Inspired, So Done In charts a long and confusing period in the bands collective life, marked by major life changes, losses and shifts, colouring the bands trademark frantic, daft and anxious energy with a contemplative glaze. Dog Chocolate continue to investigate their internal and external landscapes with playful curiosity, frustration, silliness and empathy.

Pre/history of the band: In the early 2000s Andrew (vocals), Rob (guitar, vocals) and Matthew (guitar, vocals) played together as teenagers in South-East London-based maximalist, costumed surrealist punk band Yeborobo. They met drummer Jonathan playing with his instrument-swapping masked band Limn at art space Utrophia in Deptford. Later, when both bands had split, Dog Chocolate formed with a shared desire to make a band that was simpler than their theatrical past: small amps and light guitars, no more than 2 drums at any one time, a keyboard no longer than a ruler and a shared ethos its about giving a shit, but at the same time not giving a shit, but not whatever, not giving up never!. The band floated the term pencilcase punk to describe their jumbled, colourful, dense and instant music.

Dog Chocloate built on this early scrappiness, bedding into their sound over several albums. Their first Or (2014) was a split with Ravioli Me Away, soon followed by Snack Fans (2016) and Moody Balloon Baby (2018). Along the way they played gigs with bands as wide ranging as Deerhoof, No Age, Dry Cleaning, Palm, Daniel Wakeford, Shopping and Pozi.

After the pandemic, some of the bands members moved to different cities, got new jobs, some had babies, some encountered bereavement. All things that slowed down the pace of the band, making it harder to practice and play together. The band found a way to keep their friendship and creativity going through making a monthly radio show, The CDRs Wont Last. This initially tried to chronicle the lost music of the Myspace era, but latterly became a fun place to just chat and play songs to each other. These life changes, as well as this period of a different relational pace, influenced the way the songs on So Inspired, So Done In came together. It was written in bedrooms, over the internet, and in a large shed in Shropshire (for a weekend writing get-together), rather than in the usual practice space.

Tracklist:

SIDE A
01. Infinite Nuggets
02. Fun is Always Brilliant
03. Employee
04. Springfield LibraryHaunting
05. Drumming on a Tree with FM
06. Potatoes in the Basement Bin
07. Fungal Free2023
08. Green Stuff

SIDE B
09. Architecture Days
10. Munchies and a Pen
11. Guildford Awkward
12. No PavementStory
13. Worst Jobs in History
14. Unfinished Rock N Roll Tattoo
15. A Bit of Paper
16. SoInspired, So Done In