A review.

January 5th January

King Tut’s Glasgow

Dolphinboy emerged one last time from the the post-festive blues in preparation for what they described on their Facebook page as ‘radical reconstructive surgery’.

As confusing and alarming as this may sound to the un-informed reader, allow me to explain:

Dolphinboy are an instrumental math-rock outfit who have amused, amazed and confused audiences with their razor sharp wit and proficient musical chops from their inception in 2014. They have adopted a ‘less with more’ philosophy; often a three piece with no singer or even pedal board they instead rely on alternate tunings, complex time signatures, polyrhythms and progressive song structures to breath variety and depth to their 2-4 minute songs.

They announced that last Friday night at King Tut’s would be their last gig for a while in their current format, so I went down to wave them goodbye.

They played to a room half full of friends, family and hairy metal-heads that have become their following. Opening their set with kraut-banger ‘Tinker, Tailor, Vlad the Impailer’, the song titles providing fleeting moments of comic relief between songs but also signposting their varying musical influences with songs like ‘Barry White’s Tropical Island Adventure’ and ‘The Steven Malkmus Treadmill Experience’.

Dolphinboy are set to return later this year with a few new tricks up their sleeve, but until then you can rinse their back catalogue here.

David Gibb