Chicago’s Dissonant Dessert is the music/art alter-ego of Eric Novak. As the name implies, their music is a true discordant delight. The band’s latest release, Pray You Don’t Become A Man, is a concept album about sex, gender, toxic masculinity, and culpability all told through the lens of an anthropomorphized praying mantis society. The album has been three years in the making and this week it is finally ready to make its debut to the masses.
Check out the appropriately titled “Fucked”—the first taste of the new album—premiering today only on MWA!
The song is a lush mix of traditional jazz instruments, a cacophony of vocal parts, and other noise makers. The end result is a strange but unique composition that explores a ton of musical territory in just 3 1/2 short minutes.
In regards to the album’s instrumentation, Eric says:
Apart from the narrative, this album experiments a lot with alternate/randomatural tunings. Many of the instruments on this album are actually tuned out of tune with each other in order to create a much more colorful musical landscape. This kind of approach to tuning is inspired largely by Harry Partch and his self created instruments/tuning systems. The difference is that the tunings on this album work together to create an easily approachable and still accessible environment.
The official Dissonant Dessert record release show is this Thursday, May 23rd at Hungry Brain with free jazz-funk band jəˈraf opening up the night. RSVP via Facebook. Don’t miss the live debut of this mind-blowing new concept album!