Preservation lies at the heart of music — whether it’s the cultivation and reconstitution of decades-old traditions or merely the sustained existence of what a particular artist might have heard in a dream or in a half-remembered memory. And for musician Martin Dosh — aka Dosh — this archival role does seem to come naturally. Working with aged instruments like Rhodes keyboards and a Korg EX 800 sequencer, Dosh has brought an unique approach to music to his collaborations with artists such as Andrew Bird and Will Oldham, as well as his solo works. Favoring the circuit board over analog means, his layered compositions hum with an electronic heartbeat that feels wired directly into his (and our) nervous system. On his upcoming album, Milk Money (out October 22nd via Graveface Records), Dosh has constructed a series of complex, knob-twiddled electronic landscapes that explore the distance between the organic and the synthetic — and he finds that the gulf is far more narrow than we might have guessed.
But it’s one thing to hear the music on Milk Money and imagine the studio setup required to pull it off, and it’s something else entirely to see it for yourself. And it looks like we’ve been given the chance to do exactly that. Dosh has released a video of him performing Milk Money-cut “Unto Internity” in his basement studio. In the clip, Dosh is surrounded by rows of keyboards, sequencers, and means of digital manipulation, and to see him shift from one instrument to the next in real-time is fascinating and a testament to the way in which he composes his songs. The way in which each sound compliments the next and never seems to stumble over or contradict the flow of the music is as astounding as the way in which it is performed.
Beats Per Minute is pleases to premiere the video for “Unto Internity (live basement version)” from Dosh’s upcoming record, Milk Money.