Dog Chocolate release “Infinite Nuggets,” the new single from their fourth album ‘So Inspired, So Done In,’ out February 27 via Upset The Rhythm. The fizzing track features Andrew’s chorus “Nuggets, nuggets, infinite nuggets, I didn’t make ’em I found ’em,” which the band suggests would be a stadium anthem in an alternate universe. The lyrics relate to Andrew’s recently diagnosed ADHD, specifically exploring how intense ideas big and small zoom through the brain and vanish. “Infinite Nuggets is about getting used to the fact that the richest and purest ideas are gonna pop into my conscious and disappear as they please, and a reminder that there’s a garden bursting with these nuggety fruits just beyond my conscious,” Andrew says. The video by Smooth Futon features an ever-changing collection of characters and shapes appearing out of the ether before disappearing into obscurity.
‘So Inspired, So Done In’ tackles subject matter as diverse as overheard conversations, healing fungal toenails, the Rogerian concept of the Actualising Tendency, bronze age living conditions, and human-plant relations. Work and anti-work recur throughout the 16 tracks, as do artistic inspiration and burnout. Recorded and mixed by POZI’s Toby Burroughs and mastered by Sofia Lopes, the album charts a long and confusing period in the band’s collective life marked by major life changes, losses, and shifts. After the pandemic, band members moved to different cities, got new jobs, some had babies, and some encountered bereavement, slowing the pace of the band and making it harder to practice and play together. The songs came together in bedrooms, over the internet, and in a large shed in Shropshire during a weekend writing get-together rather than in the usual practice space.
Dog Chocolate announce album launch shows at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney on Friday, February 27 and Truck Store in Oxford on Saturday, February 28, both with support from The Plan and Rattle. The South-East London band formed after members Andrew, Rob, Matthew, and Jonathan played in theatrical punk bands Yeborobo and Limn, sharing a desire to make simpler music with small amps, light guitars, no more than two drums at any one time, and a keyboard no longer than a ruler. The band floated the term “pencilcase punk” to describe their jumbled, colorful, dense music, building on this scrappiness over albums “Or” (2014), “Snack Fans” (2016), and “Moody Balloon Baby” (2018) while playing gigs with Deerhoof, No Age, Dry Cleaning, Palm, Daniel Wakeford, Shopping, and POZI.
