FREE BLOOD was born in a concrete room with no windows in the sweltering summer of 2003.The conceit was simple: A soundtrack for parties gone awry. Music to fuel awkward sexual dalliances, desperate yelled misunderstandings on the dance floor, toilets over-flowing with the night’s collective regurgitation, lonesome midnight ramblings, hair-brained (possibly illegal) parlour games, stereo components fried by heat and moisture, backyard furniture bonfires, power outages, mass hallucination, etc. The instrumentation was kept to a minimum intentionally (two microphones, bass guitar and mechanical drums) so that the group could fit into any cramped corner, with an easy getaway in case the authorities (or audience, even) took issue with the noise. Free Blood began playing smaller venues and house parties around the Brooklyn and Manhattan boroughs, usually lugging their own PA to the gig so that the ear-splitting volume they were accustomed to in the practice space could be replicated. These performances were designed to leave the audience deaf, dumb and blind….and perhaps with smiles on their faces.

When you listen to DAPPLED CITIES you actually see things. Vivid colours, strange animals, story-book characters. It's as if a world that you didn't know existed, and all its possibilities, is now within your grasp. Dappled Cities can take you there "by weaving between grandiose indie-rock, oddly bent pop and big-emotion, big-gesture music that seems refracted through a vaguely hallucinogenic mirror." Their latest album, ZOUNDS, is a masterful, sophisticated, grown-up opus epic. Its their highest achievement of a ten year career that also captures their trademark live energy.