Davey Dreamnation

Scientists from the future will stumble upon this album and think: so that’s what all the fuss was about. For clearly, if not obliquely, Watercress, the breakthrough album for Dutch-Celtic songstress Eyna, signalled a shift in fortunes for DNRC Records and its enigmatic founder Davey Dreamnation, despite the fact that said ‘fortunes’ failed, as ever, to materialise in the company’s profit and/or loss statements. In short, Watercress is a classic. Here’s why.

This tremendously barmy two-tone release, from possibly the world’s most electrifying three piece act, came hot on the heels of ninety one other DNRC releases and yet still sounds today as if it had never been thought of (let alone heard) at all.

DNRC091 | LP | 2021 | DELETED
A string of line-up and name changes, several major tour cancellations, one breach of international diplomatic protocol and half an aspirin were all that stood between The Hague and worldwide fame. Having formed in the old Dutch imperial capital in 2019, The Hague rapidly became well-known for their [...]

DNRC090 | Mini-LP | 2020 | DELETED
In 2010 Davey Dreamnation stunned the music industry by releasing an EP’s worth of theme songs entitled, appropriately enough, Themes. Breaking with tradition, one decade later Davey released a mini-LP on his own record label, prompting further speculation that he had, at least, completely lost his bonkers. What [...]

DNRC089 | LP | 2018 | DELETED
Strange retro-fitted space capsule band Waning Gibbous checked out of the collective sub-conscious some time in 2019, making this their last and, in some respects, worst album. In others, it resembles nothing so much as the scene of an aircrash investigation - a random smash-wreckage ensemble of rivets, torn [...]

DNRC088 | 2xLP | 2018 | DELETED
This stunning Qatar-only import sees Davey at his relaxed best, during an unplugged concert he put on during a trip to his Davium facility somewhere in the uncharted depths of Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter. Showcasing Dreamnation’s legendary between-song banter, the set-list includes some of his best-known hits, including an [...]

DNRC087 | 2xL.P. |  2017 | DELETED
One of the most exciting things to come out of the post-folk renaissance was a smattering of middle-aged crooners with predilections for female drummers, whose creative frisson led to such fantastic collaborative acts as River & Road, Pixel & Pixel, Rum & Raisin and, last but not least, Surds [...]

DNRC086 | LP | 2017 | DELETED
In a world filled with tribute acts, cover bands, barely-disguised parodies, comedy comebacks and on and on, it’s refreshing to know that we are just ten years away from the release of this remarkable album by Scotland’s Christy Burr, whose name, when spoken aloud, sounds exactly the same as [...]

DNRC085 | 5LP | 2016 | DELETED
One of DNRC’s highest selling albums ever, “Blue Lint” spawned a whole genre dedicated to suggesting names for this delicate substance most often found in mens’ navels. Powerful, moody and confronting, the music on this album begs for respect and gains it, through judicious use of four-four time beats [...]

DNRC084 | LP | 2016 | DELETED
In a year during which only a handful of [dnrc] releases appeared, this deliciously smudgy debut from Secret Secret Tour surely takes the rope as a masterful, iconic swagger through the history of noise pop. Taking a bullet straight out of the gun known as My Bloody Valentine’s “Honey [...]

DNRC083 | 2LP | 2016 | DELETED
Trying to compile a best-of album on behalf of a band like The Completists may sound like an impossible task, and you’re probably right. Why Davey Dreamnation ever bothered to do so is anyone’s guess, but probably has a lot to do with the mild form of stupidity he [...]

DNRC082 | LP | 2015 | DELETED
Sharp-eyed collectors will have already realised that the DNRC catalogue numbers atarted to go haywire right around the time of the infamous self-combustion of the planet Davium in 2014, and the subsequent return of Davey Dreamnation to the inner solar system. Some historians have put these inconsistencies down to [...]

DNRC081 | 7? | 2015 | DELETED
The first mewlings to come over the interstellar gamma radio after the implosion of the planet Davium in the year 2014 suggested that all was in fact not lost, or not completely. Doomsayers and pulings from the terrestrial street press notwithstanding, DNRC managed to get back on its feet [...]

DNRC080 | LP | 2014 | DELETED
With which appallingly awful pun we can safely assume that the good ship DNRC - or Davey Dreamnation Enterprises, suffered some sort of nuclear-tinged meltdown, as temperatures on the surface of the earth forced all twenty six billion of its inhabitants into the Underground, leading to a predictable upsurge [...]

DNRC079 | LP | 2013 | DELETED
When Pixel Mouse’s fledgling Spurt! label released the Worm Kings’ barmily magnificent “Say Hello to the Worm Kings” in 2014, all hell broke loose in the underground bargain bins, as hordes of previously loyal DNRC fans deserted the now-troublingly moustachioed Dreamnation and opted instead for some music they could [...]