Why does shit sell? Because music is processed in the brain’s amygdala, the same place that emotion is. It’s for reasons like this that Lowkey, in his Chipmunk diss track this year, for all his adroit dissections of major label snakes, of Chip’s engorged ego-large bars, never sounds quite, as well, hype as when a double-time Roll Deep wally tells you he’s gonna hold you up like a brolly.
Big Dada’s latest signing, DELS, can do the hype thing – peep his Myself Malfunction track – but is also aims at the zanier side of your subconscious with Manga-vivid lyrics and inventive buzz-saw beats from Hot Chip and Kwes [Jack Peñate, the xx]
DELS, Kieren Dickins, 26, was discovered aged 16 by John Peel: “I was playing in some dead end cafe in Ipswich on Sunday night. There were about five people in there. Then John Peel walks up to us and says: “I didn’t expect kids in Ipswich to be making these sorts of sounds – can you come and play for us at Radio 1? I was surprised.”
When I speak to DELS he is gearing up, a little nervously, for his studio session next week with Roots Manuva. He nettles when I compared him with the rapper, whom, with his Banana Klan-zany lyrics and dapper dan single-breasters he does bear a passing resemblance to. However Dickins honed his musical taste listening to his mother’s blues parties through the floorboards in Ipswich. His dad was a “real jungle bod”, deep into his garage and soul, while his mum shared DELS’ love for hard core hip hop.
His childhood is described, with artistic licence, in his Shapeshift cut, which replete with a Cunningham-good video, contains the lyrics: “If you’re feeling hungry I’m your quarter pound and cheese / but if you’re feeling angry I’m your punch bag release / I’m only wee high still pee on my sheets / I still read the Beano every night after tea…”
On that penultimate, potentially dubious lyric, he explains: “It was written from the perspective of a child – it’s always hard when I’m rapping that on stage and there’s a girl I like in the crowd… In those verses it’s trying to come across like a musical photograph.”
He studied graphic design at college, drawing those crowded-in heads that you see on the Kitsuné Maison compilation covers. His style is crazily visual, with a nice flow, although, he can do grime-d up aggy style – in the aforementioned Myself Malfunction – which actually badmouths the rude boy element of the scene.
Dickins has five tunes produced by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip on his new album, as well as from Kwes and the Matthew Herbert-produced Micachu. His dream, however is to work with Joy Orbison, as his style reminds him of the nostalgic garagey sound of his youth.
Dickins’ surrealistic style boasts a rich heritage – Aesop Rock, Clouddead, Anti-Pop Consortium, Doseone and TTC have come before him in the US and France, yet lyrics like his carve his own niche: “I’m laying on the cusp of the moon on the edge of my thoughts / when you’re stuck in a time warp wielding a sword / I’m moved on from that watch me soar.” Arrow-true to the amygdala
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