photos by Chris Bubinas
“…the visual fluidity of movement of wind through the dark fabric that becomes ghostly, cosmic, colorized, and so on, is somewhat ironic given the title’s inherent stillness…” – The Obelisk
The Obelisk is hosting an exclusive video premiere of “Shelter In Place,” by Baltimore, Maryland-based transapocalyptic galaxy rock duo DARSOMBRA, the track found on the band’s entrancing psychedelic masterpiece Dumesday Book. The video arrives as the band traverses the Atlantic Ocean once again to begin their latest tour across Europe and the UK.
Originally conceived as a surreal take on a pop album to contrast with their ominously prescient monolithic 2019 release, Transmission, the new album Dumesday Book is a ten-song survey of sentiment and human experience in the pandemic, from initial lockdown to vaccinated re-emergence and beyond – which, in the DARSOMBRA microcosm, means from cancelled tours to returning to the road. Dumesday Book delivers seventy-five minutes of sonic revelry recorded and mixed by DARSOMBRA’s Brian Daniloski at the band’s Whale Manor and mastered by Jon Smulyan. DARSOMBRA’s Ann Everton handled the cover art, photography, and videography.
The latest video from Dumesday Book arrives with “Shelter In Place,” the album’s opening track. “Shelter In Place” is an ominous, majestic introduction to the album’s uncertain journey of the deep range of human emotions characteristic during plague times. The track is quaking, vast, and full of portent; the video, filmed and edited by Everton, gives the tsunami of precarious fear a doleful, baleful visage. Welcome to the trip.
With the video’s premiere, The Obelisk’s article reads in part, “I won’t lie to you and say it isn’t helpful having a stated and discernible theme to latch onto in listening to Dumesday Book — the tracks themselves more ‘of the time’ than ‘about’ it — but their keys-and-guitar-based explorations have rarely been unwelcoming in the past, at least to those able to let go of expecting things like verses and choruses in their music. As regards the video premiering below for opening track ‘Shelter In Place,’ the visual fluidity of movement of wind through the dark fabric that becomes ghostly, cosmic, colorized, and so on, is somewhat ironic given the title’s inherent stillness, but I’m not sure that isn’t the idea or that the spectral figure reminiscent of Death itself isn’t the story of the COVID pandemic arriving at the shores of humanity’s collective helplessness at the outset of this downhill decade. And you know what? It’s DARSOMBRA, so it’s also okay to not be sure. Not like they’re judging.”
Tune in and watch DARSOMBRA’s “Shelter In Place” video now playing at The Obelisk RIGHT HERE.
Dumesday Book is available on CD, 2xLP, and digitally on DARSOMBRA’s Pnictogen Records. Physical formats include a twelve-page booklet, a sticker, and a download code with access to bonus material. Place orders at the band’s webshop HERE and Bandcamp HERE. Additionally, Crucial Blast just released the record in a limited double-cassette box set, available HERE.
This week, DARSOMBRA will make their return to Roadburn Festival alongside The Jesus And Mary Chain, Chelsea Wolfe, Khanate, Blood Incantation, and dozens more. Roadburn is followed by shows across Germany, Poland, Holland, and Belgium, on their way to play Exile On Mainstream 25 Festival dates in both Berlin and Leipzig – the 25th anniversary of the diverse label for which DARSOMBRA is an alumni act – with Ostinato, A Whisper In The Noise, Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Conny Ochs, and many others also on the four-day/two-city bill. In the wake of EOM25, they’ll join up with their allies Stinking Lizaveta for shows across the UK, including Desertfest London with Godflesh, Suicidal Tendencies, Ufomammut, Bongripper, Acid King, Monolord, and many more. DARSOMBRA will then make their live debut in Ireland, playing three shows across the country. See all confirmed dates below and watch for additional tour dates for the Summer and Fall months to be announced.
DARSOMBRA Tour Dates:
4/19/2024 Roadburn Festival – Tilburg, NL
4/24/2024 Kunstverein Hintere Cramergasse e.V – Nuremberg, DE
4/25/2024 Kalambur – Wroclaw, PL
4/26/2024 Lot Chmiela – Poznan, PL
4/27/2024 Awaria – Krakow, PL
4/28/2024 Mlodsza Siostra – Warsaw, PL w/ Tabaka
5/03/2024 Het Alternatief – Nijmegen, NL w/ Gorage
5/05/2024 De Loft – Herent, BE w/ Cave Inn
5/09/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Berlin, DE
5/10/2024 Exile On Mainstream 25 Fest – Leipzig, DE
5/14/2024 The Gryphon – Bristol, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta, We Speak In Tongues
5/16/2024 Puzzle Hall Inn – Sowerby Bridge, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Lands & Body
5/17/2024 The Cellar – Cardigan, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Sendelica
5/19/2024 Desertfest – London, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta
5/22/2024 The Lubber Fiend – Newcastle, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Burnt House
5/23/2024 BLOC – Glasgow, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Sloth Metropolis
5/24/2024 St. Vincent’s Chapel – Edinburgh, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta, R. Denham
5/25/2024 Tooth & Claw – Inverness, UK w/ Stinking Lizaveta, Cage The Ox
5/30/2024 Coughlan’s – Cork, IE w/ Magic Pockets
5/31/2024 Kasbah/Dolan’s – Limerick, IE
6/01/2024 Saturday Anseo – Dublin, IE
“Dumesday Book swings from dependency to exhilaration, exhaustion to hope, surveying landscapes as internal, external, and cosmic. Theirs has always been an expansive music; here it covers more ground than ever and with considerable confidence … a kaleidoscopic reflection on the weirdness of the pandemic.” – The Wire Magazine
“Throughout the album’s 75-minute-long psychedelic journey, the music rises higher and higher, becoming almost transcendental, all the while reflecting a very down-to-earth story of pandemic isolation. It might take a specific state of mind for this music to properly click, but once it does, it becomes nigh transformative. – PopMatters
“They take lengthy songs and turn them into full-blown adventures for the listener. It’s so easy to get lost in their music and just feel good about the passage of time, to where you don’t even realize how much time is passing as you listen.” – Everything Is Noise
“With Dumesday Book, DARSOMBRA creates a psychedelic-oriented reality that revolves around a synergy of musical styles… Listening to this prodigious album makes you feel like entering a sonic illusion where you feel comfortably numb and don’t want to leave.” – Echoes And Dust
“DARSOMBRA are nothing if not ambitious, following a forty-one-minute single track album (2019’s Transmission) with a seventy-five-minute record does not suggest a band who do things by half. Therefore, Dumesday Book is a remarkable piece of work and a testament to the band’s creative vision which you need to check out ASAP.” – The Sleeping Shaman
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