Dosh

What do you get when your dad leaves the priesthood and your mom gives up on the nunnery? If you’re Martin Dosh, the answer is: piano lessons. And thank God for that. On his fourth proper album, Wolves and Wishes, the Minneapolis native gracefully transforms his love for ambient electronica, improvisational jazz and hip-hop into an instrumental tour de force equally suited to the local coffeehouse, your next dinner party or the chill-out room at your favorite dance club. If you only know Dosh as Andrew Bird’s touring drummer, you owe it to yourself to check out the artist’s one-man live show. While swiveling among electric piano, drum kit and various other instruments, the multi-instrumentalist and experimental composer creates, captures and layers loops, deftly and soulfully turning skeletal grooves into fully fleshed-out compositions that would make Squarepusher scratch his head in awe and Frank Zappa roll over in his grave in reverence. When in doubt, dance.