Baltimore, Maryland’s psychedelic galaxy rock duo Darsombra today announces their long-awaited new studio album, the monstrous 2xLP “Dumesday Book”, confirming the record for release in August and issuing the cover art, track listing, preorders, and new song, “Shelter in Place”.
“Dumesday Book” is a whopping seventy-five minutes of sonic revelry, to delight and confound both seasoned Darsombra listeners and unwitting new ears alike. Originally conceived as a surreal take on a pop album to contrast with their ominously prescient monolithic 2019 release, “Transmission”, “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.
Fittingly, Darsombra wrote the framework for the album during the quarantine of Spring 2020, and then tirelessly refined it over the next three years. At times bizarre, intense, mollifying, sardonic, irreverent, overwhelming, and hopeful, “Dumesday Book” takes its name from the 11th century census book which served as the oldest public record in the English language, Domesday Book – so named because its decisions were unalterable, its sentence was law, and its survey of human activity so complete. The album’s sound follows the theme of survey as well, with glam-prog frivolity giving way to heavy psych doomscapes laden with music concrète field recordings. A bong rip takes you from a disconcerting chord progression to a goblin doggerel dirge, all to resolve into a space-shimmery synthcapade laced with heart-fueled guitar riffs worthy of any Krautrockian nod for a non-Teutonic band. Of course, there are serious moments of rock woven throughout this hour-plus-long musical journey, but to typify “Dumesday Book” as simply drone, or metal, or psych – or even prog – is missing the point.
“Dumesday Book” was written by Darsombra’s Brian Daniloski and Ann Everton, recorded and mixed by Daniloski at their home studio, Whale Manor, and mastered by Jon Smulyan. Everton handled the cover art, photography, and videography for the album. The record includes a twelve-page booklet illustrating each track, and all physical formats also include a sticker exclusive to the work and a Bandcamp download code with access to additional bonus material. Besides the standard 2xLP and CD versions, the album will also be available in a number of limited edition bundle packages, which include a handmade bismuth crystal and/or limited edition t-shirt.
With the new song, “Shelter in Place”, the band writes, “We are ecstatic to announce the release of ‘Dumesday Book’, and start rolling out more singles in addition to 2021’s ‘Call the Doctor/Nightgarden’ EP. Mournful and ominous, ‘Shelter in Place’ opens the album with a sense of majestic foreboding. Keep an eye out for more tastes of this album as the summer progresses”!
Stream Darsombra’s “Shelter in Place” now below.
Darsombra will release “Dumesday Book” on CD, CS, LP, and all digital platforms through their own Pnictogen Records on August 25th, 2023. Find preorders for all formats at the band’s webshop here and Bandcamp.
Tracklist:
1. Shelter in Place
2. Call the Doctor (Pandemonium Mix)
3. Plague Times
4. Everything is Canceled
5. Nightgarden (Profundo Mix)
6. Azimuth
7. Still Canceled
8. A New Dell
9. Gibbet Lore
10. Mellow Knees
The news of “Dumesday Book” arrives as Darsombra leaves for tour across the US and Canada, first heading down to Arkansas, then back to Baltimore, and finally traversing the perimeter of the Great Lakes. The tour begins tomorrow, May 31st, and runs through June 25th, and includes a performance at Mutants Of The Monster Fest in Little Rock with Yob, Cave In, Deadird, Pallbearer, Thou, -16-, and more, and a set supporting Yob and Cave In on June 8th in Darsombra’s hometown of Baltimore. See all confirmed dates below and watch for new tour dates for later Summer and Fall to post over shortly as well.
US Tour Dates 2023:
5/31/2023 Hideaway – Johnson City, TN (w/ Cosmicosis, Teresita Basa)
6/01/2023 Corner Lounge – Knoxville, TN (w/ Leslie Walker & Dark Mountain Orchid)
6/02/2023 Mutants of the Monster Fest – Little Rock, AR)
6/04/2023 Black Lodge – Memphis, TN (w/ General Labor, Dinosauria)
6/06/2023 Northside Tavern – Cincinnati, OH (w/ Hemlock Branch, Sharp Toys, Cold Stereo)
6/07/2023 Westside Bowl – Youngstown, OH (w/ Feckweed)
6/08/2023 Ottobar – Baltimore, MD (w/ Yob, Cave-In)
6/09/2023 Music on Main – Bridgeport, WV (w/ The Long Hunt, Grey Harbinger)
6/10/2023 RHAD – Detroit, MI (w/ Botanical Fortress, Dark Red)
6/11/2023 The Burlington – Chicago, IL (w/ Lark’s Tongue, Sanford Park, Plague Of Carcosa)
6/13/2023 Cactus Club – Milwaukee, WI (w/ Powerwagon, Spidora)
6/15/2023 The Crib – Marquette, MI (w/ Liquid Mike, Fridge Buzz)
6/16/2023 Witches Tower – Minneapolis, MN (w/ Comets Ov Cupid, PLVS VLTRA)
6/17/2023 RT Quinlan’s – Duluth, MN (w/ Boku Frequency, The Nevins
6/18/2023 TBA – Thunder Bay, ON (w/ Jake & The Town, Ukkon3n)
6/21/2023 March Street Stage – Sault Ste Marie, ON (w/ Chase James Wigmore)
6/22/2023 Zig’s – Sudbury, ON (w/ Mark Howitt)
6/23/2023 Tranzac / Southern Cross Room – Toronto, ON (w/ Alia Synesthesia)
6/24/2023 Rosen Krown – Rochester, NY (w/ Westward Journey, Jordan Lerner’s Solar Energy)
6/25/2023 Mohawk – Buffalo, NY (w/ Cult Mother, Westward Journey)
Darsombra is a cinematic conceptual rock band uniting composer Brian Daniloski on guitar, bass, vocals, and sound design, and filmmaker Ann Everton on synth, vocals, percussion, and projections. The band is internationally known for walking the line between glam-prog-psych-stoner metal and site-specific installation performance art. Live, their carefully crafted songs and videos create a hallucinogenic synesthesia for the audience, as Everton and Daniloski build a temporary reality from sound, sight, and movement.
Prolifically touring for well over a decade, Darsombra has performed in forty-eight states and twenty countries throughout North America, Asia, and Europe, at music venues, festivals, DIY spaces, house shows, galleries, city ruins, dive bars, cultural centers, record stores, coffee shops, and parks, not to mention their legendary pop-up generator shows at national monuments and forests, or just by the side of the road. No matter where they perform, the most common responses a Darsombra show elicits are, “I didn’t know what to expect, but that was awesome”, “I’ve never seen anything like that before”, and “It was like an acid trip, but without the acid”.
Following releases on At A Loss Recordings, Public Guilt, Exile On Mainstream, Translation Loss, Dogma Artistic Guerrilla, and Noise Bombing, Darsombra self-released their last full-length album, “Transmission”, in 2019. Since then, they’ve also self-released a cassette single, 2022’s“ Call the Doctor/Nightgarden” EP, while preparing for the release of their massive “Dumesday Book” double-LP.
Weblinks:
www.darsombra.com
www.facebook.com/darsombra
