Total Reality, the third full-length from Dr Sure’s Unusual Practice, finds the sometimes-solo project of Dougal Shaw in full collective form. The five-piece live band and an assortment of guests join the doctor in the studio to examine the impacts of recurring crises on the human psyche. An enduring optimistic lens over a dire landscape, DSUP plumb the depths of disorder to find a flicker of hope – then
use it to light the pyre. The clamour of executives, real estate agents and pompous politicians hushed by Shaw’s clarion call.
“Keep on laughing, keep on singing, keep on dreaming if it keeps ya head up”; the defiant mantra of dubbed out single ‘Keeps Ya Head Up’ reverberates across the 10 tracks of Total Reality. DSUP continue to find the joy in new sounds, new instruments, new collaborations. A joyous rebellion against a world that would have them in despair, it’s the type of creative resistance that instils belief in the power of art and music as a catalyst for change.
The recalcitrant rockers fluidly explore proto-punk to post-punk, new-wave to no wave, krautrock to outsider pop. Experimental echoes of Can and Eno perforate taut allusions to The Fall, Wire and flares of the theatrical Devo and B52’s. A collage of incongruous elements collide in harmonious havoc; pieces of pandemic-era demos persist; drum machines and organic percussion co-exist with the live-tracked rhythm section of steadfast members Miranda Holt and Jake Suriano; layers of samples, spoons and synthesisers of Shaw and Mathias Dowle meet the saxophones of Suriano, Stu Patterson (The Empty Threats) and Alannah Sawyer (Babyccino); Shaw and Jack Mccullagh’s six-strings, tense, loud, angular; the glossy high-range of Holt and Tali Harding-Hone, spoken word of Alivia Lester and cooing of Blue LeShaw smooth the edges of Shaw’s feverish rants. All cut and glued in the band’s Merri Creek studio, before being mastered by the master Nao Anzai (Floodlights, Cash Savage, Clamm).
Release: April 19th, 2024, Marthouse Records