dmgm

Carrie Marshall

Glasgow

DMGM are Carrie and David Marshall from Glasgow, Scotland. They now make music as HΛVR (see link below). It's poppy rock music and rocky pop music, influenced as much by Pet Shop Boys and Robyn as they are by Eels and Elbow. In a previous life David and Gary were guitarist and singer for Glasgow band Kasino, who did a lot of fun things: they supported bands including Mansun (at Glasgow Barrowland, fulfilling a childhood ambition), Miles Hunt, Biffy Clyro, Cosmic Rough Riders and Dave Sharp from The Alarm, played the T-break stage at T in the Park and appeared on countless radio programmes and the odd TV show. Kasino recorded a lot, but it was never quite how they imagined it: time was too short, budgets were too tight, stage fright was too horrible and their bandmates wouldn't let them do the Girls Aloud covers Gary so wanted to do. As DMGM they have all the time in the world, and while they're not quite covering Call The Shots - Gary did try, but the results were just horrible - they're making music that combines their love of pop with their enthusiasm for making a racket. As Gary explains: "One thing that used to frustrate me was that I really loved pop music - not in an ironic, posturing way; I have the Girls Aloud and Sugababes ticket stubs to prove it - but couldn't play it; there's a vibe you get from a great pop record that you can't really reproduce with bass, drums and electric guitars, although we did try our best. We're still using guitars in DMGM, but they're not the focus any more: the songs are mainly electronic, guitars used as additional instruments rather than as the backbone of every song, and that's given us a much broader palette to play with. That's been really liberating for us, and we're all over the shop, genre-wise: I think you can hear the influence of Pet Shop Boys in some songs, Gerry Rafferty in others, a bit of Kraftwerk here and some sleazy 70s grooves over there. Hopefully what comes across most is that we're really enjoying ourselves here, and we hope that's contagious."