Since the early ’90s, Australia’s electronic artists have hosted gatherings known around the scene as bush doofs. Like something out of a coming of age story, groups of people head out into the remote corners of the countryside, surrounding themselves in bush or rain forest to muffle the sounds of their massive dance parties. Born in Western Australia and living in Melbourne, it was during parties like these that Owen Rabbit found his love for electronic music.
His infatuation with the genre grew as he started studying jazz and classical music theory at university. During this time, he began creating his own electronic sounds using his laptop and self-created field recordings. It wouldn’t be long before his academic worlds and doof experiences began to merge in his own music. Today, he’s unveiled his latest track, “Denny’s”.
The euphoric number finds Rabbit at his most vulnerable. His aching voice crawls over sanguine sounding vocal samples and synthesizer blurts. His own looped sighs and a twitching, minimalist percussion stumble anxiously forward through the song’s rising action. The tension finds release as the synths boom and shiver on the anthemic chorus as he yells “Denny’s gonna find me/ Lying on the floor.” He confesses his internal struggles, pleading, “Is there a pill I could take, something to take the edge off?” It’s a harrowing and tender ode to feeling out of place and panicked, something the artist had to go through himself to come to this point.
“I suffer from depression and anxiety,” Rabbit tells Consequence of Sound. “One night of panic attacks and delirium in Los Angeles was a catalyst for a long journey through different therapists, doctors and dosages. I’m in a better place now. I’m glad I got help. I’m lucky that I have music in my life. ‘Denny’s’ is about that night and how I changed.”
Listen in below.
