Dorian Concept — a.k.a. producer Oliver Thomas Johnson — has announced his first album in four years, The Nature of Imitation. It’s due out August 3 and will be his first release for the L.A.-based, Flying Lotus-founded Brainfeeder label.
Dorian Concept’s last album was 2014’s Joined Ends. Why has it taken four years to follow? Per a press release, Dorian Concept was busy “meticulously un-learning his prodigious production process and developing a brand new sound that even the most clued-up won’t be expecting,” a process which led to greater use of Johnson’s manipulated voice in the recordings, as well as the counterintuitive move of playing some of the album’s “deceptively digital” sounds live, rather than programming them. So THERE.
You can experience the first taste of DC’s brand new sound below all this copy in the form of “Promises,” the first single off The Nature of Imitation. (But please read some more copy first.)
Even though this is his first release for the label, Dorian Concept and Brainfeeder have had a classic will-they-won’t-they dynamic going for awhile now — Johnson’s provided production and keys on Thundercat’s The Golden Age of Apocalypse and Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma respectively, and toured with Flying Lotus’ live act, while Brainfeeder founder Flying Lotus put a Dorian Concept remix in his 2008 Essential Mix. Dorian Concept will also be debuting a new live show at Brainfeeder’s takeover of Sonicmania in Tokyo on August 17.
Pre-order The Nature of Imitation here.
Okay, NOW — here’s that new single “Promises” you were promised a long time ago:
The Nature of Imitation tracklist:
01. Promises
02. Angel Shark
03. J Buyers
04. A Mother’s Lament
05. No Time Not Mine
06. Pedestrians
07. Self Similarity
08. Dishwater
09. E13
10. The Space
11. You Give And Give