Kent / Rotterdam post-punk trio Dancehall announce new album and share 'Fun'
"Heroes of London's DIY underground scene, Dancehall match their post-punk tendencies with delirious, off-piste pop" Clash Magazine
"Three-piece post-punk outfit, Dancehall, are kicking up quite a storm." Wonderland
The music of Rotterdam/Kent trio Dancehall has always existed in the margins: too spiky for pop, too self-aware for grunge. On 100% Music, their second album out October 24th, singer/bassist Tim Smithen, guitarist Craig Sharp and drummer Dave Keeler double-down and sharpen their edges to deliver the band’s most dialed-in, deliberate work yet.
Written as singer/bassist Tim Smithen became a father and embraced sobriety, the record confronts his own childhood, addiction and neurodivergence. 100% Music, a joke-turned-album-title, became a manifestation, with the band approaching each song as a single, standalone monument to their time together, while reflecting on the bigger events that shape their lives. They dedicated evenings and weekends to tracking and overdubbing, throwing everything they could at the recording process, resulting in an album that reflects the joy the self-declared 'brothers' find in forming Dancehall.
As a wide-eyed teenager, guitarist Craig Sharp unashamedly fanboyed over singer/bassist Smithen’s previous band Kill Keneda. In a sort of UK-based Almost Famous-esque story arc, Sharp went from building GeoCities fansites, to meeting his radio hero DJ Zane Lowe and being noticed by the band when Smithen stage-dived directly into Sharp’s face - leaving him with a black eye and an entry point into the band’s inner circle, where he ended up designing artwork and plugging their music to radio.
Years later, the two reconnected in London. What started as a nostalgic meet-up turned into a demo writing session. Passing a guitar back and forth like a game controller, they began layering riffs and vocal melodies in GarageBand. After months of demoing, they added the metronomic, powerhouse drummer David Keeler, and formed Dancehall, self-releasing cassettes and records via their own Vibe/Anti-Vibe label and touring across the UK and Europe.
New single ‘Fun’ sets the tone with sardonic reflections on childhood and neurodivergence. Of the track, Smithen says: "It's a cynical reflection on growth and growing up - from being an unseen teen of the 90s to an undiagnosed spicy brain adult of the 2020s. I’m realising that the weight of social perception, public image and self importance was present in both eras just now it’s recorded forever."
Dancehall’s 2018 debut The Band was a snapshot of a live band, 100% Music is a technicolour sprawl of intentional chaos. Referencing albums by Blur, the Beasties Boys and Pavement, they aimed to explore similarly expansive territory across their own record, keeping the recording sessions playful but still somewhat productive.
The production by longtime collaborator Christopher Smith at Kluster, London, and mixed by Hank Sullivant (MGMT) gave the record a turning point that shifted it from DIY fuzz to vivid clarity: “It went from sounding like a live band to full-blown technicolour,” says Sharp. The record's vivid, neon-saturated artwork mirrors the record’s high-contrast production. The result is crisp, abrasive, and full of detail, even in the noisiest moments. “We wanted it to sound 'full'. Neon-bright. Playful. Weird, but approachable” they explain.
With 100% Music, Dancehall wanted to do more than just capture a moment but to make a record of themselves reacting to life with humour, urgency and zero pretension.
