Romantic ditties about aliens, outros written in sheep-shearing sheds, songs about the origins of humankind – singer TIM DERRICOURT leads us through Dappled Cities’ latest album 'Zounds'.

‘Hold your Back’

This was the first proper electronic song we’ve experimented with. I’m not quite sure what this song is about since Dave wrote the lyrics but here’s a stab: a man (probably Dave) meets an alien and the creature requests a sponge bath in soapy water. Dave obliges but halfway through realises it may be classified as “cheating” on his girlfriend, so he kills the alien and eats its face. Just a stab though.

‘Answer is Zero’

We were all nicely excited when Dave brought this one in. But why isn’t there a “the” at the front of this song title? Also I think it may be mathematically wrong. Apart from that, I like the lyrics – it was written in an apartment block in New York. I was in the room below and heard him constructing it and I remember thinking at the time “lovely stuff”.

‘The Price’

This song actually existed before Granddance but I was nervous about it, so I didn’t show it to the guys too much. They would have lampooned me, strung me up, made me watch Boomerang and other torturous films and then kicked me in the hand. It’s about humans and other humans together or not together and liking or not liking humans. Like life!

‘Wooden Ships’

Macau! What a great name for a place. ‘Wooden Ships’ is written about our ancestry, going way back to the origins of humankind. With a lot of my songs, I like that early human idea as a starting point to my thoughts. Turns out they discovered just the other day that early man used bone flutes to play music upon. What next? Bones made into Hummers?

‘Slow For Me, My Island’

You remember when you were young, really quite young, and you kind of wanted to be an orphan or have a scar across your face just so it seemed like you had more of an interesting life than other people? I think people living in big cities like New York or Bangkok might have that feeling all the time. Maybe that’s why hair extensions were invented.

‘The Night is Young at Heart’

This was officially the first song written for the new album and as you hear it now, was pretty much exactly as it was on the first day of rehearsal. It was the song that came together the easiest and is also probably our favourite since it meant we had new songs and didn’t have to quit music and sell our livers to Liberia or worse, Chad.

‘Miniature Alas’

I first heard the excellent outro to this song on a farm in Bathurst. We’d gone to a sheep shearing shed to have a jam and make up stuff for a tour and I went to get a cup of tea and a seared lamb backstrap when I heard this beautiful melody soaring across the plains. In response I swallowed the lamb whole and cried.

‘Don’t Stop There’

Like a lot of the songs on this record, this started off as a very electronic piece that, when introduced to the band became more of a classic band thing. Dave came in late one night during recording and decided he wanted more thunder sounds on the record so that explains why it is the sound of the second verse.

‘Kid’

Song titles are funny beasts. This song was called ‘Older and Wiser’ for a long time. Then it was changed to ‘Pegassus’ Summer’. Then we changed it to ‘Leviathan’, then it became ‘Leviathan’ (the belly of the whale), then it became ‘Belly’, then it became ‘Kid’. Fucking hell! At least the bass is funky.

PS. That sound at the end is a cut up of 20 minutes of Ned playing vibraphone into a reverse pedal. Woah!!!!

‘Middle People’

This one also had a title change but that’s cause the original title had the word asshole in it and it didn’t suit the mood of the album. Next album will feature more things in the mood of asshole. Nice song though. Quite smooth.

‘Apart’

This came about walking around New York for a day and I kind of wanted to sing a marching song to keep me upbeat. I think I just saw a possum being chased across a rooftop by five magpies! That’s not in the song. It just happened then! Does that usually happen?

‘Stepshadows’

I love this song. It was recorded really easily – the whole band apart from strings was done in one take live. Then the vocals and group backing vocals were done live in a take straight after. On an album with so much clamourous detail and laboured changes, it was nice to do something in one day. Like God, but shorter.

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Zounds is out now through Speak N Spell.