The first time I saw Dazeases she kind of scared the shit out of me.
The whole crowd barely moved for the three bands that came on before her, and as soon as her music started everyone broke into dance as if the sound demanded it. The mass of people at the show hung on to her every word; they were listening and verbally reacting to her lyrics. I was too, I caught myself at one point thinking, “fuck this dude how dare he” in response to the opening lines of her song “Shadow Bastard”.
She is a person that is so in tune with her emotions that she has the ability to make an entire room see her insides. That’s power. Dazeases is like an actual disease pronounced like the actual word ‘diseases’), you didn’t see it coming and now she is in control of you-until the performance is over.
I’m not sure if I had ever previously witnessed a performer who embodied their sound so seamlessly that you couldn’t tell them apart. I felt like I knew way too much about this person for not having ever spoken a word to her. And that freaked me out, but I also totally admired it.
Dazeases is the lofi-sad pop brainchild of Richmonder and recent VCU graduate London Perry.
She released Lame Parties, a four-track EP this past summer which was recorded on her old laptop on an old version of garageband.
The opening track, “Sad College Kids” was created at the request of a friend of Perry’s.
“It was a summer where I was commuting between Richmond and Williamsburg so I just had all this time to myself,” Perry said. “My friend hit me up and asked if I could give her a song by that Monday and I thought, ‘why not?’”
The EP as well as everything Perry plays live is solely created by her.
“People have been reaching out to collaborate which I am excited about, but I also experience this phenomena of people being like ‘Did you write that stuff?’ and it’s just like ‘no shit why the hell do you think I’m here?’,” Perry said.
“I’m not as hesitant to collaborate in general as I am to perform the collaborations because when I’m performing that’s an expression of me.”
Perry has been performing her material for almost two years now, Dazeases being her first solo project. As far as inspirations for her music, Perry draws from personal experiences, her fascination with hook up culture and the desire for emotional directness.
“Almost everything that I sing about has happened to me or affected me in someway,” Perry said. “I don’t want to devalue my personhood; I just want it amplified through my music. I just want to know why people operate in a way where they disguise their emotions. It seems exhausting.”
Though the frustration with the inexplicit actions of others is a theme in her current music, Perry said this is a subject she intends on backing away from in future releases.
“I’m tired of talking about all of these people letting me down and want to start focusing on other things that affect me,” she said. “It just seems like a waste of my life and energy to focus so much on these negative experiences. I just don’t want to do that anymore.”
In spite of this redirection, you have to give Perry credit for the sheer talent in her past release.
Although negative in content, Lame Parties evokes the relatable nostalgia of the discovery of heartbreak and the recovery thereafter. The EP is seeping with feeling and whether you want to or not, when you listen you start feeling too.
Perry has been performing songs from Lame Parties as well as some newer content on almost a weekly basis since the start of the year. Since graduating school in December, she has directed her focus on performing and writing new material with the goal of releasing a complete album by the spring.
As far as the sound of the new album, Perry said she hopes to incorporate more intense, blunt songs such as “Shadow Bastard” while still keeping in touch with her sorrowful sound heard throughout Lame Parties.
“I wasn’t able to exhibit my vocal range in my EP like I can live because of the bad quality of my laptop,” Perry said.
So with the upcoming release, hopefully we will able to hear more powerful vocals from Perry that show her range.
Her next gig is a house show in Jackson Ward this Thursday, Feb. 11. You can also catch Perry at Strange Matter Feb. 21 where she will open for Anousheh w/ Band & the Beat at S’matter on Feb. 21.
