There’s something a different about Dog Unit. I can’t quite work out what is it, but I’m not talking about the fact they all wear navy boiler suits, nor that their music has no vocals.
The quartet may still be a young band, having released their debut EP, Barking to Gospel, in July 2020, but individually they’re all experienced musicians. After ordering a beer, taking a seat, and exchanging formalities, I ask quite how this particular unit came to be.
What follows is a sprawling recollection of gigs, parties, pubs and pints; loose ends, beginning-agains, old acquaintances and yet more gigs. After it ends, I’m still not entirely sure how we arrived at this Dalston pub, talking about this band called Dog Unit. All I know is I want to know more.
I learn that for all the prior encounters, the first time the four band members were in the same room at the same time was Dog Unit’s first session in 2018. “The objective was to just get together and play music, rather than form a band and put a record out,” says guitarist Henry.
“Our…our origin story, if you like, was still completely anti-form-a-band,” explains fellow guitarist Sam. “We didn’t feel like a band. We were just making some noise for fun on a Saturday afternoon. But it was a real click, wasn’t it?”
“I remember straightaway, after the first session, Lucy and I looked at each other and we were like, wow, that was great,” says James, who’s on bass. “I’ve played with a lot of drummers and they’ve all been good – well…maybe apart from one – but Lucy and I gelled straight away.”
“It just became clear quite quickly that we were making a lot of stuff that we thought was really good,” Lucy adds.
…the band want any record they release to sound like a live set…
Such was the immediacy of their bond, it was, in fact, during their very first session that the band wrote what became Absolute Unit, a track from their upcoming EP, Turn Right and Right Again.
Dog Unit are keen to stress they are not improvisers, but that same instinctive bond still shapes both their song writing and recording. Barking to Gospel was recorded in a day, in reverse order, with the final track taking just a single take. This was done because the band want any record they release to sound like a live set, rather than piling layers and layers of music on top of each other in pursuit of some sort of sonic “atmosphere.” Dog Unit hate the word “atmosphere.” Almost as much as they hate the word “epic.”
Barking to Gospel was mixed in post-production by revered electronic producer Four Tet. An old childhood friend of Henry’s, he polished the band’s sound while maintaining its instinctive feel. The final result is a hypnotic 25-minute debut that Dog Unit are now ready to follow.
They will do so with the aforementioned Turn Right and Right Again. Set to be released in March 2022, it was recorded earlier this year at David Wrench’s new studio. Grammy-nominated Wrench has worked with artists including Frank Ocean, Sampha and David Byrne, and mixed Arlo Parks’ 2021 Mercury Prize winning album, Collapsed in Sunbeams.
“He is amazing,” says Lucy of Wrench. “Obviously he knows his stuff inside out, but also just a really, really lovely bloke. We felt charmed to be getting to record with him.” It turns out, Dog Unit were the first live band to play at Wrench’s new studio.
“It’s a wonder that we got anything made because there’s so many toys in there,” adds Sam. “Endless vintage synths and effects pedals and records everywhere. We spent three days basically just hanging out and playing the stuff over and over again, and he was really good at coaxing the best of all of us out of us.”
“He’s got this almost wizard-like aura. Long white hair down to his belly, very chilled out, very nice sort of Welsh burr, so, when you’d finished a take, he’d come over the headphones and go, ‘That was good. I think we could do better.’”
“I came out and I felt like a better musician,” explains James. “In three days, I learnt so much from him pushing us. Not in a horrible way, but he was just like a coach.”
This is post-rock you can dance to.
Today, the first glimpse of Turn Right and Right Again arrives with the single, Rule of Six. The band use the broad description “post-rock you can dance to” as a blueprint for their music, and Rule of Six kickstarts a record made in that vein – as entrancing as Barking to Gospel, but now with a bite befitting of a canine unit.
This is perhaps a product of when the songs were written. Over the last 18 months, Dog Unit’s sessions were one of the few semblances of normality they got – still given the weekly opportunity to smash it out and make noise in a rehearsal room while the country remained couped up.
“And I think that comes out in the music,” Lucy explains. “There’s an anger, or an unease, to it. We were all just uncomfortable and fucked off and I think that really comes out.”
At one stage, the interview veers off into a passionate, if brief, debate about how to sort a record collection; surname of the artist followed by order of release is quickly sanctified. It’s a telling little exchange, however, because it highlights what music means to Dog Unit. I doubt any of them would shirk the label of music-nerd. Every record they own, is precious. Every Dog Unit record that sells, therefore, means the world to the band behind the music. They know about the two vinyl copies of Barking to Gospel in Japan. And about those in America, Italy, France, etc. The universal language of music without lyrics is not lost on them.
One of my favourite features of this frontman-less foursome is the lack of ego. In our conversation, I’m speaking to four people. When listening to their music, one listens to four musicians. When watching them play, or seeing their photos, one sees four equals in boiler suits. Four equals have shaped Dog Unit this far. Four equals will shape where it goes next.
“We’re like the UN Security Council,” Sam jokes. “We all have power of veto.”
I cannot help but think less experienced, less talented, less confident bands, would not be able to put four individual agendas to the side to achieve Dog Unit’s egalitarianism.
“We’re all big fans of each other’s playing,” says Henry. “Turning up and playing with these guys is like being able to take part in a really cool live gig with three other amazing musicians. And we’re all quite good at restraining each other’s tendencies – particularly everyone else restraining mine – and that’s what makes it interesting, and challenging, for us.”
James, who’s got a certain sincerity when he speaks, says, “We play most weeks and I just look forward to it.”
I wonder if confidence is perhaps the distinction I stumbled over at the beginning. Not an outward, boastful confidence, but the tacit, meaningful kind: the kind which reveals itself over the course of a conversation and you only notice on the tube home afterwards. For when I met Dog Unit, there was not even an inkling of arrogance. Arrogance is insecurity. When it comes to making music, Dog Unit seem perfectly secure. They think they’re good – don’t get me wrong – but that’s not arrogance. It’s evident.
