DOVIAK is back with ‘Century’, the brand new single from the multi instrumentalist songwriter. Released today Fri 28 February 2020, sketches out postcard memories of distant cities and coldly dismantles the dynamics of 21st century desire. From the stacked chaos of a San Francisco junk shop to the baroque ‘froid’ of Montmartre
Recognised as producer, co-writer, guitarist and keys player with Johnny Marr, the previously unheard track is pinned in place by a recurring riff, drawing keenly on the influence of classic, Düsseldorf-born electronica, based on ideas he’d formed with a discarded Casio keyboard. Described as “a melancholic Valentine’s ode to obsession in the age of Tinder”, DOVIAK restlessly searches for meaning in a world of instant gratification and sets his hypotheses in the opulent folds of his meticulously-crafted recordings.
As social media and digital platforms pour fuel on to the fires of the darker side of human nature, even love doesn’t stay off limits. Century kicks off a new decade with DOVIAK glancing at the tightening grip of narcissism, want and the promises of an upgraded life via the swipe of a screen, penning his lyrics in the heart of Paris as the world passed, unromantically, by his window.
He says: “’Century’ was written mostly in Paris while on tour, idling in a neat hotel overlooking the rooftops near Montmartre. The melody emerged from a cheap little keyboard I’d picked up from a junk shop in San Fransisco years ago, finally clicking when the riff became a guitar line. Any sense of isolation created by the waves of sound and sparseness, reflecting the fact that so little makes sense in spite of every attempt to understand, is deliberate.”
Century is the first new music to be released by DOVIAK since his 2019, debut EP, Enemy Numbers, which featured the singles, Empire and Solid State Machines.
