Dez Dare - You Woke Up On My Side Of Time

A beautiful melancholy song with surreal new video

Story by Ben Avery

27/06/2026

A new song and video from Dez Dare’s forthcoming album ‘These Days Are Wild & Blind’. The album is a collection of 12 songs that will be released one track a month via digital platforms starting March 2026, with the whole album exclusive to Bandcamp now.

The new video is a touching but surreal watch with. Cast members are all small handmade puppets and strangely seem to convey the melancholy feeling of the song really well. Dez says the single is about being away from home, distant from the familar... "We all get so busy, time expanding and folding at different rates, distance between us growing. Time to head home." Taking a more philosophical view of time and the world from Dez’s perspective, these tracks are more personal, introspective and diverse in tone than previous albums. Effortlessly gliding between experimental acoustic excursions to motorik 8bit chants to fuzzed up guitar anthems. I started writing the lyrics for this set of songs in-between shows in Berlin and Brussels. Writing about the things that cloud and warm my brain, the time while waiting for things to happen is where the most beautiful bursts of clarity come into focus. The point of purpose is unique. Bespoke to the individual, joyful to the young of mind. Fly yer freak flag fuckers. There’s no other time. - says Dez. Dez Dare (AKA Darren Smallman of labels God Unknown, BATTLE WORLDWIDE, Low Transit Industries, and bands Thee Vinyl Creatures, The Sound Platform, Warped) grew up in Geelong, Australia, where he became involved in the local punk and rock scene in 1990. Sharing stages with the likes of 5678s, Fugazi, and the Cosmic Psychos before shifting his focus to running record labels. In the 2020s we see Dez Dare take form in a spare room in Brighton, UK, where he starts building a studio and producing music and videos that have been described as "sounds like MONSTER MAGNET and DEVO caught in a drug bust… highly unique and highly recommended" by MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL to The Wire’s Edwin Pouncey "dynamically armed with a ten-pronged set of lyrical barbs and musical hooks that, once heard, sink deep and hold fast" to Crossfire Metal "minimalistic, electronic psychedelic hippie poop that is only bearable with a hell of a lot of acid, angel dust and LSD".