darren smallman

Expat Aussie fuzz 'n' beats rocker Dez Dare is returning home from the UK for shows to celebrate the release of his fourth album, "A Billion Goats. A Billion Sparks. Fin."

The media release is worth reproducing verbatim:

On past records Dare has fought beasts and beats alike, waging a fuzz war and tackling the biggest topics the world has to face; Doom scrolling, capitalist demagogues, a passionate dislike of the beach in summer. On this record he leaves the sardonic frustration behind for sarcastic existentialism, zeroing in on the big philosophical questions, and the pedantic shards of nonsense that make up our existence.

Piling up the synths, noise boxes and guitar pedals, Dez set about building a soundscape of noise and ideas around the nature of reality, time, and how we interact with them. From the music you would play in your last moments, to the reverse Darwinism of modern society, to arguing with time itself, and very boring people talking at you, all is covered here for the aspiring existentialist. 

Dez Dare is self-produced Darren Smallman (ex-Low Transit Industries, Warped, The Sound Platform)and he's three decades producing music, releasing and touring bands, and doing live sound. A product of the coastal Victorian city of Geelong,  he was introduced to the DIY punk and rock scene at 15.

Operating in the crystalline shadows and existential backwaters of the psyche, Dez Dare constructs psych-hymns and soft-punk that punches you in the brain while tenderly calling you to inaction.

No other time calls for expression more than times of suppression. Trapped in reclusion under the germs' eye in the UK, expatriate Aussie Darren Smallman (BATTLE WORLDWIDE, Low Transit Industries, Thee Vinyl Creatures, The Sound Platformand Warped) has built a Frankenstein's Monster within his own house. Bolted together with old pedals, guitars and synths, he is about to release an album’s wortrh of tracks about existence, social normality and the illusion of reality.

New single “Dumb Dumb Dumb” is lifted from the forthcoming new album “Hairline Ego Trip”, out on June 4 on Ch!mp Records and is available for pre-order here..

Back in the ‘90s, Darren Smallman was immersed in the fertile Geelong-Melbourne punk rock scene in Australia as a player, label head and manager. These days, the ex-member of Toad, Warped,Thee Vinyl Creatures, The Wells Collective and The Sound Platform lives in the UK, working in the charity arts sector and producing his own music under the moniker Dez Dare.

Dez Dare and Melt Citizen (El Paso, USA) have unleashed a DIY fuzz EP , "Spl;itz", that they promise will “melt your brains and hearts”. It’s available through Bandcamp with a crowdsourcing campaignunderway to get it out on vinyl.

In the pair’s words: “Hidden away in spare rooms and makeshift studios while in very different pockets of the earthly domain, there were two who worshipped at the altar of guitar pedals and heavily discounted recording plugins. This split EP digs deep into the cacophonous divide between reality and the two countries entrenched in denial, grasping to find a way out of the long grass. Back into the light.”

“Trashin’” is the latest video single from Dez Dare, the alter ego of expat Geelong boy Darren Smallman(ex-Warpedamong others), now living in the UK. It’s taken from the album “Ulysses Trash” and you can procure it here.