LISTEN: Dan Webb — The Self Watches Their Return (feat. Nicole McCabe)
Dan Webb is a Singapore-based musician who has been putting out records since 2008, moving from keyboard-driven progressive rock to post-punk and electro-jazz. His 2023 release Sunshine/Dialogue got him a Self-Producing Artist of the Year nomination from the Music Producers & Engineers' Guild of Australia. "The Self Watches Their Return" comes out on October 30. It's an instrumental and the last single before Dan Webb's fifth album, Lion Dance, due on November 13. Playing on it are Clive Deamer (Radiohead, Portishead), Tim Lefebvre (David Bowie's Blackstar), Nate Werth (Snarky Puppy) and saxophonist Nicole McCabe.
The song is a crystal-clear psychedelic kaleidoscope of countless colorful elements moving asynchronously, much like the Kenny Scharf-esque composition on the cover. And if lions dance, their dance may be beautiful, but there's danger in it, too. It's the predatory leap of nature itself. The insistent neon arpeggios that open the track are as sharp as a shaggy king of the savannah pouncing from an ambush, and as bright as the artwork itself.
Then reality starts splitting into layers. The drums stroll along lazily, the keyboards flow like a lion's saliva at the sight of a gazelle, and here comes the lion himself — or, to be precise, his soul. The maestro saxophone breathes, sings, twists, turns, glitters in the sun, and shimmers with every color imaginable on his behalf. It's a wonderfully strange piece of music, full of playful details, unexpected movements, and that slightly unsettling sense that something wild could happen at any second. I love how much is going on here, and how much fun it is to follow all these little creatures of sound as they dance around each other.
The song is a crystal-clear psychedelic kaleidoscope of countless colorful elements moving asynchronously, much like the Kenny Scharf-esque composition on the cover. And if lions dance, their dance may be beautiful, but there's danger in it, too. It's the predatory leap of nature itself. The insistent neon arpeggios that open the track are as sharp as a shaggy king of the savannah pouncing from an ambush, and as bright as the artwork itself.
Then reality starts splitting into layers. The drums stroll along lazily, the keyboards flow like a lion's saliva at the sight of a gazelle, and here comes the lion himself — or, to be precise, his soul. The maestro saxophone breathes, sings, twists, turns, glitters in the sun, and shimmers with every color imaginable on his behalf. It's a wonderfully strange piece of music, full of playful details, unexpected movements, and that slightly unsettling sense that something wild could happen at any second. I love how much is going on here, and how much fun it is to follow all these little creatures of sound as they dance around each other.