Introducing: Don Glori + new single 'First Touch'
We’re extremely excited to introduce you to the latest member of the DeepMatter family, Melbourne’s-own, Don Glori, who today releases his first single with DeepMatter - ‘First Touch’.
A product of the not-so-underground, genre-bending melting pot that is Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Don Glori (AKA Gordon Li) prepares to unleash his forthcoming album ‘Don’t Forget To Have Fun’ via DeepMatter Records.
Offering up a first taste of the record with synth-laden, midnight-soul bop ‘First Touch’, the music follows the release of his much-heralded 2022 LP ‘Welcome’, a subsequent sweep of the Australian festival circuit and an EU / UK tour. Following this, Don found himself straight back in the studio but coming up short, he explains:
He explains: “Don't Forget To Have Fun was initially recorded in mid 2022 after several months touring my first album Welcome and at a semi-tumultuous time in my life. Add in a tough 3 days in the studio - broken equipment, illness, burn out from the touring, 40 degree Australian summer heat, a bike accident, and I was left finding it quite hard to enjoy the music. All these things combined made me decide to put the DFTHF session recordings on ice indefinitely.”
Following his relocation to London, UK in 2023, Don managed to tap in to a potent creative current, by taking himself to a place of discomfort, and taking his creative back to basics - allowing additional room for experimentation. He says “I revisited the album after moving to London in May 2023, I was living in a tiny room with barely any equipment and my only income was from the slight bit of touring I was doing which was all going towards rent and groceries. It was a good opportunity to redefine the songs from the DFTHF sessions and inject some new life into them. I had just finished touring Europe, moved to a new city, didn’t know anyone, and had all the free time in the world to experiment with wacky, zany ideas. In the end I re-recorded a lot of the parts on the record in the kitchen of my Whitechapel flat while my housemates were at work. (You can hear the ambulances in the background when you isolate some of the tracks)”.
This invigorating approach helped distil the initial album sketches into a compelling and intoxicating listening experience - with all tracks sharing similar subtle themes and commonalities running throughout. Lead single ‘First Touch’ strikes a seductive tone, with a trance-inducing groove and soundscape channelling the energy of late-night soul and instrumental cuts from the likes of Lynda Dawn, Sade and John Carrol Kirby.
On the album’s title, Don explains: ‘The name Don't Forget To Have Fun is a nice reminder to myself about the journey of the album. How you can change the narrative by keeping a positive attitude, trusting the process and continually experimenting.’ A true work of art, traversing jazz, funk, soul, RnB, samba and beyond, this record is hard to describe, but even harder to forget.