Dollboy is the project started back in 2001 by Oliver Cherer. He had been a fan of the early Eno records in my teens and had just discovered the ambient stuff and when he discovered the Laraaji album (Ambient 3).This period produced the first two Dollboy albums, "Plans For A Modern City" and "Casual Nudism", appearances on various compilatons and radio shows, a couple of 7" singles and remixes and acclaimed shows at The Big Chill. Now there's "Further Excursions Into The Ulu With Dollboy". The fifth Dollboy album is a vocal album of twelve songs. It's less electronic, there's more singing than before.
1. Miles Davis - In A Silent Way
This has stillness, fragility, boldness, soul and intellectual rigour. It’s been with me since I was 15 but has been a regular touchstone throughout everything I have done in the last 15 years. Still sublime to me after more listens than is healthy.
2. The Jesus And Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
This, in its stark, bare bones simplicity taught me about melody in a way nothing before it did. When I first heard it on Janice Long’s Radio One show it soared and yet when I examined its constituent parts it seemed to be made of nothing.
3. Brian Eno - 1/1 Music For Airports
First hearing this was like being rescued after four years of making very noisy dance music and jolted me (gently) into making a series of ambient records of which I’m still proud. It also led me to making experiments which still occasionally reward with listenable and useable results.
4. David Bowie - Art Decade
This tune, amongst many, many others by Bowie strikes me as the perfect balance of craft, discipline, art, pop, cool and cultural savvy that I’d love to stumble upon one day. It exudes decadence and elegance in equal measure and I have not made my last attempt to steal it.
5. Matching Mole - O'Caroline
This sounds too simple to be this breathtakingly beautiful. How do you do that?
6. Jack Hayter (featuring Suzanne Rhatigan) - Sisters Of St Anthony
I can’t overstate how important my friends are to me as an artistic influence. Jack has a rigorous approach to his words which work, for me, as a bench mark to which I can only aspire. Jack will never include a throw-away line and will agonise over the right words until they are just that – right. This sets him apart.
7. King Creosote and John Hopkins - John Taylor’s Month Away
I came to this a year late and it made such an impact that I’m still working on avoiding the slavish copying of this tune and others from this record.
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