Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.
The Dodos—the band, not the bird—are back from the brink of extinction with “Forum,” the lead single from their first new album in three years.
The Bay Area duo, made up of Logan Kroeber and Meric Long, formed in 2005. Within a few years, their second album Visiter was hailed for its primitivist sound and experimental instrumentation. Kroeber studied West African Ewe drumming and blues fingerpicking, and his hyper-precise percussive contributions share center stage with Long’s guitar-playing and heavy metal-inspired vocals on the album.
Since then, The Dodos have expanded from their minimalist roots over the course of six albums, occasionally enlisting the help of outside musicians and swapping electric guitars for their usual acoustic ones to continue to experiment with their sound. Their latest single, titled “Forum,” shifts between expansive and metronomic to reflect that growth.
“Forum” combines musical elements familiar to the work of The Dodos—intricate looping drum patterns, clattering, manic guitars, whiplash-inducing time changes—with new instrumentation, like the song’s shimmering string section present underneath. The track will be included on the band’s new album Certainty Waves, and considering that the album’s cover art depicts an unsettled ocean, it’s hardly a stretch to link the ebbing speed and tension present in “Forum” to that elemental imagery.
Certainty Waves is due out from Polyvinyl on Oct. 12 and is available for preorder here. Hear “Forum” below, and be sure to keep scrolling to check out the new album’s artwork and tracklist, and the band’s upcoming North American tour. Finally, since you’re here, watch a clip from the Paste vault of The Dodos performing “Jodi,” circa 2008.
Certainty Waves Album Art
Certainty Waves Tracklist:
01. Forum
02. IF
03. Coughing
04. Center of
05. SW3
06. Excess
07. Ono Fashion
08. Sort of
09. Dial Tone
The Dodos Tour Dates:
November
01—Kingston, N.Y. @ BSP Lounge
02—Somerville, Mass. @ Thunder Road
03—Hamden, Conn. @ The Space Ballroom
04—Montréal, Québec @ Bar le Ritz
05—Ottawa, Ontario @ The 27 Club
06—Toronto, Ontario @ Horseshoe Tavern
07—Detroit, Mich. @ Third Man Records – Cass Corridor
08—Grand Rapids, Mich. @ The Pyramid Scheme
09—Green Bay, Wis. @ Lyric Room
10—Minneapolis, Minn. @ 7th Street Entry
11—Chicago, Ill. @ Lincoln Hall
13—Cleveland, Ohio @ Beachland Tavern
14—Philladelphia, Pa. @ Johnny Brenda’s
15—Washington, D.C. @ Rock & Roll Hotel
16—New York, N.Y. @ The Bowery Ballroom