Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Doko – The Growlers, City Club
City Club sounds and feels like no other indie-rock record around today. It’s sleazy, a little messy but to us, it’s one of the most inspired records of the last 10 years. Produced by Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, engineered and mixed by the legendary Shawn Everett, it’s an absolute joy to listen to. Each track sounds like someone took the master tapes and dipped them in radioactive battery acid, mutating them into these beautiful freaks of nature. They draw on a wide range of influences from L.A. surf rock, new-wave, disco and music from alien worlds. As a band, it shook us up a bit and made us realise indie-rock can still sound fresh and exciting in the 2010s. With a thirteen-song tracklist, we could write up thousands of words declaring our undying love for this record, but no-one’s got time for that. So here are three of our favourites.
City Club:
This is the title song and an absolute standout on an album full of bangers. I have particularly nostalgic memories of this song, a time of starting new jobs, meeting new people and continuously facing the changing sound of our band in its early conception. The sound reminds me of a weird amalgamation of surf rock, The Doors and a whole bunch of disco hits, and it just works so nicely. Coming from a fan of everything 80s, the disco-style drum beat really butters my muffin, kind of reminds me of the Michael McDonald classic, ‘I Keep Forgettin’’.
I’ll Be Around:
This is the first Growlers song I ever listened to, it immediately made me a fan and I started to listen to their vast discography over the next few days. It’s got one of the most intriguing and hypnotic bass lines, the instrumentation really draws me in every time I listen to it. The production in particular uses layering so perfectly. It creates this wall of sound while still ensuring that each instrument is clear and recognisable thanks to Shawn Everett’s masterful mix. I tend to listen to it on the biggest speakers I own and it never fails to blow my mind. So to quote from Kill Bill: Part 2, this song can only be described as “gargantuan”.
Daisy Chain:
I’m a big sucker for happy sounding songs with melancholy lyrics, and Daisy Chain is one of those songs. The beautifully played keys riff sounds like it’s straight out of the 1970s. Oddly enough, It makes me picture a field of daisies (not that the song has anything to do with daisies). The lyricism throughout most Growlers songs really make me reflect on a whole bunch of emotional conflicts I’ve had throughout my life. I personally interpret this lil’ number as the struggle of anxiety and dealing with the troubles of everyday life. As you can probably tell, this song hits kind of hard.
Lots of love,
Budo & Jared
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Catch Doko on the road this August and listen to latest single ‘Borrowed Time’, here.
