Shimmering psychedelic rock trio Dirty Sound Magnet have shared their new single ‘Lonely Bird’, the third from their upcoming fourth LP, Dreaming In Dystopia (20th October, Wild Thing Records).
Watch the stop-motion video for ‘Lonely Bird’ here: https://youtu.be/lAnUBCgYiqY
In the words of the band, everything in the music video “is handmade and done 100% DIY over the course of three months.” Although demanding a painstaking production process, from crocheting the puppets, scenery, and props, to actually animating each and every frame, the result is an utterly spellbinding visual treat that keeps the track’s fantastical symbolism faithfully intact.
As Dirty Sound Magnet, longtime friends and band members Stavros Dzodzos (guitar, vocals), Marco Mottolini (bass, backing vocals), and Maxime Cosandey (drums, backing vocals) have developed a reputation as one of Europe’s hardest working bands, releasing four records (one live and three studio albums) and performing over 650 mesmerising live shows throughout Europe, UK, and Mexico since their inception in 2016.
The band have recently announced new UK dates, as following:
Nov 01: Hull, The Adelphi
Nov 02: Edinburgh, Bannermans
Nov 03: Glasgow, Audio
Nov 04: Blackpool, Bootleg Social
Nov 05: Newcastle, Anarchy Brew
Nov 08: Nottingham, Ye Olde Salutation Inn
Nov 09: Birmingham, Asylum2
Nov 10: London, The Water Rats
Nov 11: Bristol, Mr Wolfs
Nov 12: Swindon, The Victoria
Even with the onset of a global pandemic, Dirty Sound Magnet remained steadfast on maintaining their reputation of tireless artistic output, going as far as to work on two records simultaneously. One of those was 2022’s DSM III, which the band cites as a means to “release their wild energy during lockdown”. The other album is what eventually became the upcoming Dreaming In Dystopia, with each of its tracks connected by a common thread of being showcases of Dirty Sound Magnet‘s most deeply emotional and personal examples of songcraft and lyrics to date. The band worked closely in the rehearsal room and started producing this next, more expansive album right after the completion of DSM-III. One of the first songs recorded during this approximately two-year process was this latest single, ‘Lonely Bird’, whose concoction of psychedelic, folk, and progressive rock textures would eventually provide the thematic and stylistic blueprint for the album as a whole.
“All of our previous albums have tender moments but the band is known for its high energy and explosiveness,” says Stavros Dzodzos. “We always loved rock bands that were able to produce albums where the focus was on the songwriting and the emotion rather than on the energy. Think albums like Rubber Soul, Stand Up, Led Zeppelin III, or Strange Days. These are the types of records that were always close to not only my heart but for the rest of the band’s as well.”
Through and through, ‘Lonely Bird’ plays the part of a proper prog ballad, framing the breakup narrative at its core around the symbolism of two birds parting ways and changing of the seasons. This instillation of metaphor imparts the track with greater thematic nuance, with its nature-related analogy allowing for Dirty Sound Magnet to explore this subject matter across a whole spectrum of emotions, depicted in the dreamy twang of reverb-washed guitars, swells of proggy keys accentuating the track’s most harmonious moments and Dzodzos‘ yearnful vocals that serve as the emotional anchor of ‘Lonely Bird’.
Dzodzos explains: “I think that a rock band needs some maturity to explore more intimate feelings and atmospheres, but you also need some maturity as a human being to be able to express feelings authentically. With the three of us having been performing, writing, and recording music together for as long as we have, being able to convey these elements on Dreaming In Dystopia as a whole came very naturally to us, with ‘Lonely Bird’ being a key milestone in the creative process. From then on out, we knew we were working on the album we have always dreamed of making.”
