Staring Into The Abyss: def.fo’s ‘Music for Dinosaurs’ Is a Cosmic Concept Masterpiece
Tom Powell, aka def.fo, is the kind of artist who can stare into a black hole and still see its potential. In fact, that’s pretty much the point of his new release Music for Dinosaurs, a concept album set on the inhospitable plains of Mars. As its population hovers on the brink of collapse, they set their sights on Earth for a fresh start, with these eleven tracks charting their precarious voyage through space.
It follows less than a year after def.fo’s debut release Eternity, another deeply immersive meditation on the strangeness of existence. Inspired by the San Junipero episode of Black Mirror, the songs explored the idea of a halcyon afterlife, where virtual simulations become indistinguishable from reality.
Music for Dinosaurs doesn’t stray too far from this philosophical terrain, but this time eternity could be short-lived. Will his Martian exiles blow their second chance at survival? There’s a creeping pessimism to Powell’s vocals suggesting they might; his introspective lines delivered in a languorous, disaffected drawl. Meanwhile, the instrumentation is kaleidoscopic, moving fluidly between every genre at his disposal, from trip-hop through to sun-drenched guitar harmonies towards the operatic grandeur of Pink Floyd or The Who.
First track Let It Go introduces the theme of survival, its string of self-help mantras recited over droning beats, before unexpectedly ceding to a delicate string ensemble. Faced with impending extinction, there’s a dark comedy in hearing Powell reel off CEO-style self-preservation strategies like “Suppress the fear of thoughts and you will overcome” and “Stay top of your game and keep yourself sane”. It’s like getting advice to slather on sunscreen ahead of a stellar explosion.
def.fo – I’m Coming Up
The Brightest Lights addresses the encroaching power of machines, and the autonomy we grant them against our own best interests. Despite opening with a cheery human whistle, it switches to an emergency broadcast, with warnings issued in cold, robotic diction. Existential threat is vividly drawn in lines like “Dolphins drown in boiling seas, and falcons fall from sullen skies”. The album is filled with sharply-realised images like these, telegraphing disaster in improbably poetic language. By the time the android blandly announces that “Your evolution has been cancelled” it barely even registers as a shock. Perhaps we’ve become inured to hearing the news of our own demise.
This is closely followed by When The Sun Is Gone, whose jangling haze of guitars feels briefly like a reprieve – at least until you clock the lyrics about people prepping fruitlessly for endtimes, packing boxes and “bolting down latches just for a distraction”. Material objects lose their significance: “Abandon life possessions, learning life lessons / No need for photos ’cause there’s no one left to look”, with the nineties indie overtones giving everything a warm nostalgic sheen.
Somehow, it isn’t all doom and gloom. This New World is a tender vow to protect a loved one (a child?) through whatever lies ahead, while We Are The Aliens makes peace with the idea of abandoning the old planet, with evocative turns of phrase that highlight the beauty and sense of adventure in starting over: “Only heading up, never heading down / We cut our wings from stardust clouds”.
While a lot of Music for Dinosaurs operates at a slow, deliberate pace, closer Pebbles to Boulders injects bright mariachi flourishes worthy of the Pale Fountains – Powell after all, plays bass for Michael Head & the Red Elastic Band. A distinct Liverpool lineage shimmers through the record, not just musically but in little details threaded into the mix, like the cawing seagulls and lapping waves that draw the album to a close. Powell and his dad Steve work together as a production team, and with Steve having engineered releases for bands such as The Stairs, Michael Head & the Strands, and John Power of Cast, they amount to a pretty heavyweight duo.
Above all, it’s a record which embraces the mystery of creation and destruction, shrugging its shoulders at the futility of it all, while reminding listeners not to waste what time they have left. It’s proof of def.fo’s growing status as a highly experimental producer with a pioneering spirit, unafraid to flex his creative vision and cast the listener a million lightyears away from their comfort zone. Music for Dinosaurs is a long hard look into the abyss, but somehow it’s a life-affirming one too.
Stream Music For Dinosaurs now. Follow @deffo_music on Instagram for updates.
Orla Foster
