Dent May
Hometown: Oxford, MS
Tags: singer-songwriter, acoustic, indie pop
Dent May writes
and records homemade pop music in Mississippi, where he was born in
1985. He began songwriting at age 12. The following year, he started a
band called Flood, who covered Creed and 311 and sold homemade cassettes
to classmates. In high school, heavily influenced by Elvis Costello and
The Cars, Dent fronted a power-pop band called The Rockwells. Feeling
like an outsider in Mississippi, he retreated to the Internet, where he
spent his time soaking in pop music and culture from around the globe.
After dropping out of NYU film school, Dent founded Oxford,
Mississippi’s self-proclaimed “infotainment cult” Cats Purring. Since
then, his musical endeavors have included a debut LP of ukulele tunes on
Paw Tracks, dance recordings under the Dent Sweat moniker, and a
mysterious unfinished psych-country rock opera called Cowboy Maloney’s
Electric City. He throws notorious DIY shows at his home, a former Boys
& Girls club now deemed the Cats Purring Dude Ranch.
Recent singles on Forest Family and Paw Tracks have found Dent
abandoning the ukulele in favor of cosmic synths, funky guitars, analog
drum machines, loopy bass lines, and massive vocal harmonies. He played
all the instruments on his new album Do Things, which was recorded at the Dude Ranch and in a friend’s rural cabin by a cotton field. Do Things will be released by Paw Tracks on June 12, 2012.
- You Can't Force A Dance Party - Dent May
- You Can't Force a Dance Party - Dent May
- Welcome - Dent May
- 26 Miles (Santa Catalina) - Dent May
- God Loves You, Michael Chang - Dent May
- 26 Miles (Santa Catalina) - Dent May
- Oh Paris! - Dent May
- I'm an Alcoholic - Dent May
- College Town Boy - Dent May
- Howard - Dent May
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Nashville Scene on Dent May
5 days agoDent May w/Tim Chad and Sherry & Meth Dad Fri., June 14,2013 9 p.m. The Stone Fox If Dent May has been off your radar for a minute, you might be a little perplexed by his billing with local electro-funk groove unit Tim Chad and Sherry. After all, the first time around, the Oxford, Miss., native was jamming out uke-infused AM gold that made us strongly consider adding a straw hat and seersucker suit to our wardrobe. May hasn’t abandoned the classic pop architecture or flair for memorable melody that marked his debut, but he did trade in his uke for electronic production gear along the way to 2012’s Do Things. His new groove, influenced equally by Ace of Bass and The Beach Boys, allows him to continue addressing the perpetual disaffection of youth while exploring new sonic territory, which he does quite well; Daft Punk he’s not, but his electro jams are tight and bob-and-weave ready. Couple that with TC&S’ liquid kinetic freshness, lately augmented with the six smokin’ strings of Richie Kirkpatrick in place of William Tyler, and we’ll call that a party. $7 more at getn2.it
TheOwlMag on Dent May
5 months agoDent May Do Things [Paw Tracks]
Dent May has laid his magnificent ukulele to rest and instead taken up with a synthesizer on his newest full length, Do Things.
Although a synthesizer’s no theremin, Dent May is completely channeling the Beach Boys on this sophomoric effort. From May’s swinging, layered and overextend singing to his eccentric hints of psychedelic instrumentation, Do Things is a Mississippi boy’s version of Pet Sounds.
Somewhat similar to that of Brian Wilson, May composed and recorded the album entirely on his own. But instead of chasing after California girls, May’s content in middle America — “Don’t want to move to Southern California, I wasn’t really meant for LA,” he sings on the closing track “Home Groan.”
Despite that, it’s still easy to make a song for song comparison: for Wilson’s “Sloop John B,” May gives us “Rent Money”; for Wilson’s “I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times” we get May’s titular track “Do Things,” yet the album transcends the ’60s comparisons and can stand as a 2012 creation thanks to his ironic album art of a carefree young man lying on floatie in a lake just above the words “Do Things” — May makes it obvious that his music was crafted with millennial twenty-somethings in mind.
more at theowlmag.com