OUT NOW!!
By a slip-of-the-knife chance operation, a broken-wristed roulette spin, the new full-length Dogtablet album, “Feathers And Skin” that I’ve been working on with Martin King and Roberto Soave for a year is finally out right now on Bandcamp. I’m simultaneously incredibly proud of it and freaked out by it, part of me wants you to listen to it, and part of me is afraid you actually will!
“Feather And Skin” is bleak yet groovy, heartbreakingly naked yet laced with dance floor sweat, and it’s definitely cracked in some quite exquisite ways. It’s very different to much of my existing canon, and though I’ve been really loving the process of working with Martin again after decades apart, it’s scary for me to put this one out. This ain’t no Chemlab. It is not Prude or h3llb3nt either. Neither Ether Of Souls’s dark drive nor Altered Statesmen’s loopy quirk .. or really anything else I’ve done. Sure, it has coal-black, churning, oily currents pulsing through it, and yes, there are disturbed shards’n’barbs salting it, but there’s a whole other side where I’m just .. naked as fuck. There are threads of melody woven into it that surprise me. I actually sing on some of it which, for me, is deeply vulnerable because that’s not what I’ve done. I’ve never considered myself a singer by any stretch of the imagination, and so I’ve never sung. Even more frightening considering Jenny Belle-Star’s on this disc too. She can actually sing which makes for a brutal core-skills referential counterpoint to me. Regardless, I spent much of my writing and singing time on these songs trying to push myself. Since dogtablet’s not Chemlab I started to want to see what else I can do. Admittedly, I‘ve yet to challenge myself as much as I know I can, but if this record’s anything, it’s a harbinger of my willingness to plunge beyond what I know I can already do, to take chances, be vulnerable, and drive myself to evolve as an artist. Freaks the fuck out of me though.
It is also going to get zero exposure without you, so I’m asking for your help to expose it. This album, that I’m incredibly proud of, with songs like ‘Shadowlands’ where I’m broken open in ways I’ve never allowed myself to be before, will disappear unnoticed because that’s the way the pitching, endlessly breaking waves of this “business” works. I honestly don’t care if it sells. I do care if no one sees it though, and it feels like so many great records and amazing artists are vanishing into the ethers right now. So please, pass it around to your friends. Share the links, Bandcamp now and Spotifuck et al next week. Post about it, if you can. Turn people onto it, if you like it. Turn people you dislike onto it if you hate it! Write a review of it and post that to your threads and put it on the boards. Play it at the coffee house where you work. Blog about it. Spin it on your radio show or when you’re DJ’ing. Martin and Roberto and I are all available for interviews and always happy to talk shit about ourselves and our art, so interviews are easy to get. I’m leaning on you for support, not only because I know what you can do, but because I believe we’re stronger together, and because we should all be supporting each other as we grow and evolve as humans and as artists. So there. If you’re tagged here it’s because I trust you and I think you might give it a whirl. If I haven’t .. you’re next! Maybe you’ll dig it. Maybe you won’t, but I hope at least you’ll try it. Scary shit.
Much more to come.
Stay you!
-Jared