Dogme 95

6/25: Dogme 95 @Subterranean
Nick Wright may not be taking a "vow of chastity" any time soon, but under the moniker Dogme 95, he makes music that's pure and primitive like the Danish film manifesto. With his debut LP Arcadian Hymns, released on his own Mission Label, the 24-year-old Wright pays homage to a broad range of artists, from southern chain-gang bluesman Leadbelly to German electronica godfathers Kraftwerk.

Dogme 95's Casio-driven folk anthems are very much like hymns (hence the album's title), with lots of vocal harmonies, hand clapping and foot stomping. The voice also takes a prominent place in Wright's music. He often layers his vocals up to 32 times, like on opening track "Summon My Baptist Ways" or the nine-minute avant-garde jam "Left Field Battle Call." Wright's lyrics are stream-of-conscious meditations on universal ideas such as love, history, spirituality and the cycles of life.

"It's a lot of imagery," he explains, "but most of it is all about how it sounds. Does it flow right? Does it rhyme? Nothing is really ever a message. I just let it be what it is. The only thing I'm talking about is fucking rock." words: Amber Drea

June 25
Subterranean
2011 W. North
773/278-6600 - UR Chicago (200 K)

Part alt-blues frontiersman, part home made Sellotaped electro experimenter, Dogme 95 spills out an unsettling musical stream of consciousness from a densely private lo-fi world.

Cheap keyboards and drum machines (complete with fill-button breaks) clump away behind mesmeric, semi-catatonic chants, delivered at a slurred tangent to normal musical notes.

In fact Dogme 95 (or Nick as he’s also known) is entirely liberated from the normal customs of singing in tune or playing in time. “Voices colliding without any other reason” as he puts it. Songs begin, slow down and lurch to a halt in a Casio clatter, only to take off again into another slowly unwinding spiral of melancholy mantras.

'Arcadian Hymns' is a series of darkly primitive blues moans lightened with the odd (and sometimes very odd) trace of synth pop. It is nature’s antidote to Moby. Don’t listen to it on your own in the dark. - Drowned In Sound. UK

:::::::::::::: Think the Microphones meets Leadbelly in the garden of Brian Eno...oh, and Tiny Tim ::::::::::::::: ~ Ryan Duffy, VICE Magazine ~ - VICE Magazine

Dogme 95 - Arcadian Hymns

This is a record that shows the future of organic sounds and makes the ears sing. With catchy melodies, janglely instruments, and primitive conviction - Arcadian Hymns has succesfully modernized the sound of 1940's prison chants with modern indie rock. Thank you for the ideas... Dogme 95. - UR Chicago

Arcadian Hymns is a most peculiar record. It's a blend of old-timey instruments banging up against modern synthetic gadgets, and it forms a sound that's equally primative, modern and post-modern.

Arcadian Hymns starts with "Summon My Baptist Way," one of the first indie-rock chain gang songs I've ever heard. Accompanied by nothing more than the sound of hand percussion and his own multitracked voice, it's a rough, raw delight. It's followed by "Kingdom/Garden," an equally pretty song, but unlike its predecessor, this song is completely synthetic in nature, save for Nick's own soulful singing. Following this little new-wave delight is "Calm & Tame," which is an upbeat, singalong-style number that's simply Nick on acoustic guitar and basic percussion. This juxtaposition of the raw and natural and the slick and artificial makes Arcadian Hyms a charming balm for music lovers weary of modern-day "traditionalists." Just listen to "Bear Beat II," a chain-gang chant that's built on a drum-machine beat, or "Left Field Battle Call," a folk number that's built around a reggae beat and a drum-machine accompaniment; though ultimately they are simple melodies, they sound quite complex, simply because nobody's ever really done anything quite like this.

He does err somewhat by inserting some simple electronic-based numbers; while such moments are interesting, songs like "Ocean Floor" and "Push Baby Fallin" weigh down the rest of the record, because they're simply self-indulgent pieces that serve no real purpose. It's clear that Nick is a much better bluesman than he is innovator, and after listening to him channel the past so convincingly, coming back to the present just seems rather awkward. Still, with their blend of futuristic beats and the raw centuries-old blues rhythms, it's clear that Dogme 95's discovered the stylistic formula that has elluded Beck for the past decade. All in all, Arcadian Hymns is an excellent, interesting debut.

--Joseph Kyle
- www.mundanesounds.com

Sharing a name with the cult filmmaking credo that emphasized naturalistic sound and lighting, Dogme 95, a.k.a. Nick Wright, create tiny symphonies of densely layered sound. While ostensibly lo-fi, Wright culls enormous charm from his delicate melodies, chattering electronic clatter, and warm, organic synths. Arcadian Hymns (Mission) is a minor masterwork.

-- Patrick Conlan (http://illinoisentertainer.com)
- www.illinoisentertainer.com

Dogme 95 "Arcadian Hymns" (Mission, www.missionlabel.com) A solo project by Nick Wright of Chicago, Illinois. Nice mellow stoned folk grooves like a skeletal Camper Van Beethoven spun out of toy instruments mixed with a sorta Little Wings verbal flow and abstracted/connected poetic leaps of the imagination. Maybe even some early Beck smatterings of surreality, often delivered with a compulsively rhythmic rhyming momentum.
- Dream Magazine

Part alt-blues frontiersman, part home made Sellotaped electro experimenter, Dogme 95 spills out an unsettling musical stream of consciousness from a densely private lo-fi world. Cheap keyboards and drum machines (complete with fill-button breaks) clump away behind mesmeric, semi-catatonic chants, delivered at a slurred tangent to normal musical notes.

In fact Dogme 95 (or Nick as he’s also known) is entirely liberated from the normal customs of singing in tune or playing in time. “Voices colliding without any other reason” as he puts it. Songs begin, slow down and lurch to a halt in a Casio clatter, only to take off again into another slowly unwinding spiral of melancholy mantras.

'Arcadian Hymns' is a series of darkly primitive blues moans lightened with the odd (and sometimes very odd) trace of synth pop. It is nature’s antidote to Moby. Don’t listen to it on your own in the dark.
- www.drownedinsound.co.uk