here & now

Tonight in Berlin: What a cheeky bastard, this Dent May dude and his ukulele. He’s a crooner, a guttural falsetto meets tongue-in-cheek entertainer from the olden days, equipped with his little wooden friend, and his tunes, especially the plain-spoken I’m an Alcoholic (quote: “I’m over being sober.”), Meet Me In The Garden, and You Can’t Force A Dance Party, are so bold and slick in a retro-fifties kind of way, it’s just hilarious. Let’s face it: this Southern-Minimal-Tropicana-Country-Sunshine-Pop is just what the album title hints at – some serious feel good music. A folk-pop boy wonder, a hopelessly romantic art school dropout, a latter-day Huck Finn from the swamps of the Mississippi, an owner of a free range organic chicken farm in Buxton, OH, and a sucker for the portability of the ukulele, who allegedly recorded these tracks with his buddies in some shitty trailer, he’s been the blogosphere’s favorite for a while, and it’s awesome to finally see the release of his debut album on Paw Tracks. Rumor has it, though, that he’s already over the plucked lute and is going to focus on some more danceable electronic tunes with his even newer project called Dent Sweat (it’s not what it looks like: his mother’s maiden name is Sweat). Yet, for now let’s enjoy the ongoing “Dent May-nia” in hopes of total “May-hem” to come.