Who | Douglas Dare

When | Wednesday, October 19

Where | Kantine am Berghain

For fans of: Tom Adams, S. Carey, Low Roar

Since his debut in 2013, singer and pianist Douglas Dare has made his home in the London-based ambient label Erased Tapes, working alongside musicians such as Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds. These influences are immediately audible in his sound, which is a crisply-produced melange of sparsely orchestrated strings, synth, drum machine, and flourishes of brass, with piano and his silky tenor voice serving as the crux of it all. Released just last week on October 14th, Dare‘s sophomore LP Aforger is an unmistakeable commentary on coming to terms with oneself amidst life-altering revelations. Likely due to the way he plays around with aural space, the composition is both minimalistic yet full-bodied, and—much like you’d expect from an album of this nature—the overall tone is dark, brooding and brutally honest. But given that this sentiment is not overblown, Douglas Dare has succeeded in creating a beautifully melancholic and sincerely introspective collection of songs.

Who | Oh Pep!

When | Wednesday, October 19

Where | Privatclub

For fans of: First Aid Kit, Marina and the Diamonds, Lucius

“Liv” Hally and “Pepi” Emmerichs of the Melbourne duo-turned-five-piece band Oh Pep! met at art school, and the rest is history. While they released their debut EP back in 2012, it took the band quite some time to finally put out a full-length album. That changed earlier this summer with the release of their brilliant first LP, Stadium Cake. The combination of dreamy pop instrumentation, country-tinged melodies/lyrics that would make The Dixie Chicks proud, and production standards borrowed from modern-day Billboard hits makes them simultaneously sound like everything and nothing else in the music industry. Suffice it to say, Oh Pep! is pop band that deserves a way bigger audience and will almost certainly achieve that soon, so try to catch them in these smaller venues now while you still have the chance.