Douglas Dare

English songsmith Douglas Dare returns with his third and most stripped back studio album to date, Milkteeth, released on 21st February 2020 by Erased Tapes. Dare has a graceful honesty and an abiding clarity of vision in his simple and distinctive sound – and we’re overjoyed to be welcoming him to perform at Future Yard.

This show has been rescheduled once more, to the new date of to 18th February 2022, following the guidance relating to the COVID-19 situation in the UK. All original tickets remain valid for the re-scheduled date.

Produced by Mike Lindsay — founding member of Tunng and one half of LUMP with Laura Marling — in his studio in Margate in just 12 days, Milkteeth sees Douglas become confident and comfortable enough with his own identity to reflect on both the joys and pains of youth. In doing so, he has established himself as a serious 21st Century singer-songwriter with an enduring lyrical poise and elegant minimalist sound.

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Dare’s music speaks of his own experiences of universal themes like love, loss, and childhood. Perhaps most importantly, his music gives a voice and a sanctuary to anyone who’s ever felt unusual or out of place.

Douglas Dare grew up on a farm as the youngest member of a large extended family, where he was often found in his own private world, dancing in his mother’s pink ballet dress. “Only now do I feel free to express my inner child again, and am giving myself permission to play dress up,” says Dare of Milkteeth’s cover shot, in which he wears soft makeup and is draped with layers of white linen, acting the part of a Greek muse. “I never felt like I fit in. I was different, odd. I wanted to dance and sing and dress up and on a small farm in rural Dorset that really stuck out.”

Marking his arrival in 2014 with the release of his acclaimed debut Whelm and establishing his musical dexterity on the much darker follow up Aforger in 2016, Dare’s star keeps growing. In 2017 he was asked to contribute a re-interpretation of Dance Me To The End Of Love to the Leonard Cohen exhibition A Crack In Everything at the Contemporary Art Museum of Montréal; and he was invited by Robert Smith to perform at his Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre in 2018, followed by the David Lynch-curated Manchester International Festival alongside Anna Calvi in 2019.

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Future Yard presents
Douglas Dare
18th February 2022
75 Argyle Street, Birkenhead
#thefutureisbirkenhead