Dog Unit

London quartet Dog Unit surprise-release a new EP, At Home, Still, comprising a selection of songs from their debut album At Home radically revamped for acoustic instrumentation only.

The result is an “acoustic” EP in name only. The aim isn’t to shrink the material, as is so often the case with traditional rock bands’ acoustic efforts; instead, At Home, Still retains the trademark Dog Unit detail and richness but equally reimagines and elevates it, deconstructing the debut album’s instrumental post-rock compositions and rebuilding them as chamber folk. The only rule in the EP’s creation was that no instruments were permitted that draw electricity.

Accordingly, the core band of Lucy Jamieson, Henry Scowcroft, Sam Walton and James Weaver on pared-back drums, acoustic guitars and bass, respectively, were augmented by a string quartet, upright piano, flugelhorn, harmonium and bass clarinet to bring an entirely new texture to the songs.

“When you typically hear acoustic versions, it’s a fairly quick hit of novelty value, before a bit of scrutiny makes you realise why they weren’t acoustic in the first place,” says Walton. “But on At Home, Still, we wanted to use the creative restrictions of the ‘acoustic EP’ form to re-explore our material, expose its different layers, and show that those layers of melody and harmony remained strong even when you stripped away all the effects pedals and amps.”

“In doing so, perhaps we can also show how folk music and post-rock are musicological bedfellows — drones, repetition, single ‘pedal tones’ that hold while other harmonies move around them, subtly melancholic melodies – just performed at different volumes and on different instruments. I think I got into Nick Drake and Stereolab around the same time in my teens because they felt like two sides of the same coin."

The genesis of the EP came in April, after Dog Unit played a series of in-stores and radio sessions in spaces that were arguably more sympathetic to quieter music than the fully raging Dog Unit backline. With that in mind, the band started to wonder how they might sound without all the bells and whistles of their electric live show, as just a completely unplugged quartet live in a room. One thing led to another, and at the beginning of August they spent a day with their producer, Mark Estall (who also recorded At Home), doing exactly that.

The results of that day-long session laid a foundation that was skeletal but strong: four tracks from At Home were performed live, together, on acoustic instruments and with no overdubs, with broad swathes of auditory space deliberately left for other instruments that might complement the new all-unplugged set-up.

“Once I got the raw recordings home after that session,” remembers Walton, “I listened back and started hearing all these different orchestral timbres in my head to go alongside the acoustic guitars and percussion, so I started writing small parts for strings and brass and messaging my musician friends to see who would be up for contributing. Within a week, we had a plan.”

Working with noted contemporary classical composer Scott McLaughlin as an arranger, string quartet parts were added to the new versions of ‘Concrete Barges on the Banks of the Thames’ and ‘When Do We Start Fighting’ courtesy of a scratch quartet put together for the EP made up of Gwyneth Nelmes, Amalia Young (violins), Freya Hicks (viola) and Kirke Gross (cello), whose collective playing credits include the London Contemporary Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Gabriel Prokofiev Ensemble, The 12 Ensemble, Apartment House, Geordie Greep (Black Midi), Black Country New Road and Attawalpa.

Haunting bass clarinet lines were written for the avant-garde clarinettist Heather Roche (Modern Nature, Apartment House, Zollner–Roche Duo) to layer into ‘We Can Still Win This’, and a flugelhorn duet, double-tracked by The Listening Project’s Jack Jones, brought out a newly wistful side of ‘Consistent Effort’. Sam then added piano and harmonium parts to try and echo some of the textural qualities of the originals, Lucy overdubbed some hand percussion for extra tactility, and a small but perfectly formed EP slowly emerged.

“One of the biggest pleasures of making this EP was the ability to dig into the weeds of these songs one last time before setting them aside and starting to write album two,” says Sam of the process. “Investigating every musical avenue of the compositions felt really satisfying and cathartic — it satisfied me that we’d written good songs to start with, songs that stood up to being messed around with, and it was cathartic to exorcise every musical ghost from them.”

At Home, Still, follows on from Dog Unit’s debut album, At Home, released by Brace Yourself Records in April. The record was greeted with universal critical acclaim, including glowing 4-star reviews in The Times and MOJO and 9/10s in Loud And Quiet and Flood, and also reached number 36 in the UK Official Record Store Charts. The band will tour the UK this autumn in support of the album, with tickets for all shows on sale now. Please find a full touring itinerary further below.