Dosh - Wolves and Wishes

Dosh
Wolves and Wishes
(05.2008, Anticon)
Verdict = Instrumental music with wide-eyed originality

I think it is about time we stopped referring to Dosh as Andrew Bird’s drummer. That is probably going to sound a little divergent and unnecessary to some readers, but from where I am sitting that is just about all I hear when Dosh comes up. Despite his able contributions to Bird’s already incredible songs, Martin Luther King Chavez Dosh is, in and of himself, a musical genius. Wolves and Wishes, Dosh’s fourth full length album on the Anticon imprint is a testament to this. Continuing in the same direction seasoned listeners have become accustom to, Dosh still manages to deliver the goods and on Wolves and Wishes he is at the top of his game. Something about Dosh’s music, though utterly trained and scrupulously composed, feels beautifully innocent, fresh and inspiring. With dynamic drumming that patters like a drizzle throughout the album and layers of floating synths, Wolves and Wishes is manages to let in bursts of sunlight amidst each song’s individual, tangled complexity. Dosh also recruited some help. Andrew Bird returns the favor by adding his signature violin work to the mix, Will Oldham lends some vocal gibberish to “Bury the Ghost” and former band mates from Fog also contribute to the mix. It is no wonder with a collection of musicians this talented that things turn out so wonderfully, yet even with his friends on board, Wolves and Wishes is distinctly Dosh. With grumbling drones, textured atmospherics, glittered electronic blips and bleeps and probably just about any other instrument you could list off in under thirty seconds, Dosh has created a rambling masterpiece of sorts and definitely the high mark of his recorded output to date.

-Mr. Thistle

Dosh - "The Magic Stick"