Dent May
Dent May - Girls on the Square
Artist: Dent May
Hail from: Taylor, Mississippi
Musical Style: Indie, Pop, Lounge
For Fans of: The Magnetic Fields, Elvis Costello
Why you should check him out:
Proving that heartbreak sounds just a little sweeter when accompanied by the pleasant strumming of a ukulele, Dent May and his acoustic companion have swiftly updated the role of this tiny instrument into the realm of current day indie pop.
Background Check:
The bespectacled Dent May first picked up the ukulele, his instrument of choice, in 2002, signing with Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label in 2008. With a soulful and kitschy attitude towards lyrics, May creates whimsical and heart wrenching music with a shy and subtle wink. His debut record was just that, titled The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele, and featuring May fronting a four piece ensemble, the record is all hooks and naivety. The album reveals May as the lounge lizard, the hopeless romantic, and as the simple country boy. Yet, it’s in May’s wholesome and sensitive music, completely poetic and theatrical, that the songwriter comes through.
May is in possession of one the more mournful bravados in music, conjuring up front men like The Magnetic Field’s Stephin Merrit or even a youthful Morrisey. Though, in May’s world the barroom still sways with player pianos and deep southern charm. With his ukulele always at his side, May is a stickler for the genre, making the sort of witty indie pop that revels in it’s characters as much as it’s music. And May is the perfect character actor, a showman through and through. His lanky build and slicked hair only add to his extreme specs and buttoned down demeanor. Songs like his trademark single, “Meet Me in the Garden” can create of songwriting, at home in the island sunsets of Hawaii, but more apropos to the river banks of the great Mississippi, Dent May and his Magnificent Ukulele are making waves and setting sights on greener shores
Where you can find him in cyberspace:
On Tour:
