Dog Unit release their debut album, At Home, on Brace Yourself Records on limited edition LP, eco-friendly ‘Greensleeve‘ edition, CD and digitally. To celebrate the occasion, the London quartet also release a brand new single ‘We Can Still Win This‘ alongside a Guitar Hero-inspired video directed by the band’s own Sam Walton, as well as announcing an extensive autumn UK tour.
‘We Can Still Win This’ – named for guitarist Henry Scowcroft‘s catchphrase when watching England play cricket – is pure, concentrated Dog Unit at the peak of their powers. Launched out of the gate by James Weaver‘s propulsive, funk-laden basslines, it’s a perfect showcase of Walton and Scowcroft’s dancing, interlocking guitars, all held in place by drummer Lucy Jamieson‘s deceptively dexterous beats.
Don’t take our word for it though – watch the accompanying video and take note of how the band’s component parts combine to create a tsunami of earworm melodies, riotous dynamics and driving, Krautrock rhythms.
Of the video, Walton explains: “When it came to making the video, I thought it might be interesting to focus on the ‘Win’ part of the title, and started to wonder how the video would look presented as a game. I remembered how when we were recording the track last year and playing it a lot at Servant Jazz Quarters too, everytime we played it, I could almost ‘see’ the track coming towards me, Guitar Hero-style, and I knew I had to try and make the song into a Guitar Hero level. A friend of mine told me about this whole online community that makes their own bespoke Guitar Hero-style charts for an open-source game called Clone Hero, and so I downloaded the software and wrote a chart for each of the four of us. Then I put them all alongside each other to make it look like we’re playing this big co-op game of GH, which is probably a better metaphor for Dog Unit than I ever intended.”
The band recently announced the limited “Greensleeve” edition of At Home, an innovative physical edition of the album geared towards greater environmental sustainability. The Greensleeve is identical to the LP version, with all the same expansive photography, liner notes and lush physicality, except in place of the vinyl record itself will be a code for high-resolution downloads of the album alongside a set of four drinks coasters made from sustainable cork that are exclusive to the Greensleeve variant, giving listeners something stylish to rest their drinks on while they listen to At Home at home.
The driver of the ground-breaking Greensleeve edition is a statistic often quoted in conjunction with consistently rising vinyl sales, that up to 48% of vinyl records are never played. This represents at best a market failure – huge numbers of fans appear to want only the packaging, not the media, but can’t buy just that – and at worst an ecological disaster, given the heavy carbon footprint of the vinyl-production industry. Accordingly, the Greensleeve edition seeks to cater to the Dog Unit fan who buys physical music primarily to show their support and to own a physical object that can augment the listening experience, but who doesn’t want to contribute to the ecological weight of vinyl production or who has a tighter budget: priced at just £9.99, the greensleeve is not just the most environmentally friendly physical version of At Home, but also the easiest on the wallet.
Following the announcement, the Greensleeve edition was supported by folks including Music Declares Emergency, Earth Percent, Imagine5, Loud and Quiet and none other than British cultural institution Chris Packham, who commented, “I love my vinyl, but only play a percentage of it, so I like this a lot – imaginative, creative, clever, and new thinking – top work.”
1. Concrete Barges on the Banks of the Thames
2. Lab Coats
3. When Do We Start Fighting?
4. We Can Still Win This
5. In a Magic World, Then Yes
6. John X Kennedy
7. Consistent Effort
8. The Dogs Are Barking Again
Buy At Home on CD, LP or digitally, or grab the “greensleeve” edition, here:
https://lnk.to/DogUnit-AtHome
Photo credit – Xenia Owens