Dream English Kid: I See Red

By Jon Milton

It’s a curious beast, this new single from Dream English Kid. It starts off with a shuffling beat that wouldn’t be out of place on a Café Del Mar compilation, in comes the shoe gaze guitar, then the icy vocal and then, before you know it the tone of the song has completely changed into something altogether more psychedelic and menacing. You need to listen to it all the way through of course to appreciate it fully, but its well worth the listen.

The band formed in Preston but now reside in Manchester and consist of Hannah Cobb (Keys & Vocals), Liam Ogburn (Bass) and Maria Toase (Guitar & Vocals). Taking their name from Birkenhead artist Mark Leckey’s Turner prize winning video piece, the group aptly describe their sound as a combination of ‘dirge-y bass, sombre organ, dreamy guitar and melancholic vocals to settle the unsettled’.  

Hannah says of the single “I See Red was written a few years ago; a product of growing up in a confusing and weird world. We really tried to capture the feeling of uncertainty and darkness in the lyrics, whilst also generating this weirdly positive energy we get from feeling so lost. The drive to make something good and express a feeling which seems prevalent amongst our generation. We revived it recently and recorded, mixed and made the artwork ourselves, which is important to us as we feel like this has been the best way to capture our collective emotion within the song and keep it as our own.”
 
The band have been getting some great traction in the North, having shared bills with Art School Girlfriend, Porridge Radio & Stealing Sheep, amongst others, and have some solid connections both ends of the M62, so expect to see them out and about once this awful gig-free period ends. In the meantime, you can enjoy ‘I See Red’ here.