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Taken from BroadwayWorld (May 27, 2022)
Dopapod Release Their Seventh Full-Length Album: 'Dopapod'
Dopapod is Eli Winderman [keys, vocals], Rob Compa [guitar, vocals], Chuck Jones [bass], and Neal "Fro" Evans [drums].
by Michael Major
Dopapod. Photo by Michael Weintrob |
Progressive journeyman Dopapod are excited to announce the release of their seventh full album, Dopapod. The eleven tracks on the album are the sonic harvest from a period of deep creative outpouring that saw the picking up the threads of a "concept catalog," first introduced on 2014's Never Odd Or Even.
After nearly a decade of developing their craft, the quartet-Eli Winderman [keys, vocals], Rob Compa [guitar, vocals], Chuck Jones [bass], and Neal "Fro" Evans [drums]-consciously present albums as experiences, meant to be shared out of your speakers, on stage and now in new interactive mediums, and Dopapod is their latest multisensory experiential offering.
The catalog concept of exploring the world of Dopapod extended into a collaboration with Tandem Media on an accompanying animation project for the album, a partnership with Soundscape VR where the band debuted the album last night offering fans an immersive audio-video experience of each song on the album, and the creation of the Building a Time Machine tabletop roll-and-move board game, which is cleverly integrated into the gatefold vinyl packaging of the album.
Dopapod cover |
To accompany the game the band is offering multiple merch bundles that include game accessories such as Meeple Pawns, Dice, Game Piece Baggies, and Dopapod-themed pads and pencils for keeping score. The illustrative details and custom game mechanics reflect how carefully it was created alongside their longtime team member and former lighting designer Luke Stratton, who is now realizing his calling as a professional role-playing game and map designer.
"We got to thinking, what if we're building a time machine that allows us to go back through Dopapod's history? In the game, each album is its own land, and every space on the board is a different song," says Stratton. "We came up with the infinity loop concept and portal as a way to travel through the band's history."
Leading into the release of Dopapod the band started to tease out songs, each with an accompanying short animation that when stitched together, culminates into the Building a Time Machine short film. The band's first offering was "Think," a song that Pop Matters said "mixes the lighthearted virtuosity of Frank Zappa with the celestial gravity of IQ and classic Yes," followed by "Grow" a song with soaring keys and synth line crescendo as the song accelerates before returning to where it started, true to Dopapod's palindromic existence.
Next was the infectious groove-filled "Black Holes," which explores the concept of black holes being used for time travel and focuses on the theme of unity, a concept the band aims to tap into through improvisation both in the studio and on the stage. The final offering leading into the release of the album was "Fannie," a song born during a camping trip in Colorado.
Under the Radar, Magazine commented that with "Fannie," "the band's psychedelic alchemy works perfect with the track's simmering pace and lets the track wind onwards with an irresistible allure. Meanwhile, the accompanying video is similarly psychedelic and hypnotizing, with a person lost in an endless looping reverie as he dreams of his love."
The album is rounded out by seven more songs that showcase the band's diverse range of influences from the surreal jazz collage of "Happy Accident," which was written as a tribute to Bob Ross and explores the happy accidents that come with pursuing artistic and creative endeavors, to the lush harmonies of "Enough," with its beautiful acoustic guitar intro and uplifting mantra of "We Are Enough," to the bouncy "Time is Funny" that tips its hat to rockabilly.
As always, there's more to Dopapod's vision with the union of the physical and digital elements. "It does feel like we made all these albums and made a time machine," says Compa, "And now we're at the new frontier, wherever we're going."
And going they are, on the road this year introducing fans to the new music on festivals, headlining dates, and a summer tour where they will be supporting the father of funk George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic.
Listen to the new album here:
TOUR DATES
5/27 - 5/29 Summer Camp Music Festival / Chillicothe, IL
6/15 SummerStage in Central Park / New York, NY**
6/17 Beardfest / Hammonton, NJ
6/18 College Street Music Hall / New Haven, CT**
6/19 The Palladium / Worcester, MA**
6/23 Lincoln Hill Farms / Canandaigua, NY
6/24 Northlands Festival / Swanzey, NH
6/25 Beanstalk Festival Bond, CO
6/26 Riverfront Live Cincinnati, OH **
6/29 The Ramkat Winston-Salem, NC
6/30 Salvage Station / Asheville, NC**
7/02 The Caverns / Pelham, TN**
7/14 - 7/16 The Werk Out Music & Arts Festival Thornville, OH
8/11/2022 / Mesa Amphitheater / Phoenix, AZ**
8/17/2022 / YouTube Theater / Inglewood, CA**
8/19/2022 / Mountain Winery / Saratoga, CA**
8/20/2022 / Blue Lake Casino / Blue Lake, CA**
8/21/2022 / Charles Krug Winery / Napa, CA**
** supporting George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic
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