Barking to Gospel

London-based instrumental band Dog Unit with their debut EP minialbum, Barking to Gospel, containing the full-length version of Lab Coats and three more tracks that take in blissed-out reverb-drenched euphoria, dub-flecked postpunk and, on the EP’s final song, music for evil-faced dancing clowns headbanging in a wind tunnel. Barking to Gospel was written over the past year at the band’s rehearsal studio in Hackney, and then recorded live over a weekend just before the UK went into lockdown. As the world ground to a halt, the band sent the raw files to Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), who agreed to mix the EP while self-isolating in upstate New York, and then the EP was mastered at Invada, the studio run by Geoff Barrow in Bristol.

Dog Unit sound like electronic music played by a rock band, or post-rock you can dance to: driving, insistent, intense and, crucially, fun. Do call them: purveyors of entrancing drone, tactile texture, slow-mo polyrhythm and skewiff riff. Don’t call them: Dogwai.