Domino Vault announce Archie Bronson Outfit’s 'Derdang Derdang' as third title in Domino Vault series

One evening in 2002, Domino founder Laurence Bell walked into his local pub, where an artful racket pierced the smoky haze of The Cat’s Back in Putney. At the other end of it were Archie Bronson Outfit, a sharp looking three-piece made of art-school students hailing from Somerset. 

Archie Bronson Outfit were quickly signed and released their debut album Fur in 2004. However, it was with their 2006 follow up Derdang Derdang that the band really hit their stride. Wielding a raucous concoction of blues and garage rock fine-tuned with some folk sensibilities, Derdang Derdang was critically acclaimed and garnered the band a cult following. 

Drummer Mark ‘Arp’ Cleveland says of the writing of Derdang Derdang: “We were writing songs across the autumn of 2004 into 2005. An underlying sense of “fuck it” and a healthy dose of bitterness to drive us. Our debut had received good reviews...but it had little impact - we were a bit deflated, poverty increasing. 

It was a cold old thin-walled place. The electricity would randomly run out; pop!  You’d have to scrape the cash, run to the newsagents, charge the meter key. Once, mid song, my bedroom door suddenly flew open. Bang! A wild lady burst in screaming and flailing, kicked over an amp! Transpired we’d noise-tortured her from across the road. Still don’t know how she got in. We apologised, promised to stop and then locked the doors and carried on.” 

After finishing the writing and dropping off the demos to Domino, a recording session in Nashville was arranged with up-and-coming producer Jacquire King (King would later go on to produce the Kings of Leon’s fourth album Only by the Night). “We had a month in A.T.G. studio, where there was an easy and relaxed atmosphere. Jacquire had us set up in one room, amp bleed and all, harnessing a live vibe. I remember him incredibly focused, forever running through to tweak the tuning on drums and making us do lots of takes (it was hot and sweaty) and he soon figured out we were better without clicks and going at it as a live flowing unit. By the end, Dor slept on the live room floor as we’d spread out into all corners. Jacquire was great at capturing the in between happenings; he’d hear someone fiddling in another room on a guitar or piano and quickly get an engineer to run a lead out and track it. He set up a mini rig in an empty warehouse to record Rituals with suitable reverb. His energy and focus was boundless.  

When it was time to fly home, we couldn't do it; we bailed and extended our stay a few weeks, floor-camping at Jacquire's studio nearby as we continued the Nashville immersion,” Cleveland continues, “Derdang Derdang was conceived within the drizzle of London hangovers and grind, but birthed in the sweet warm embrace of Nashville and Jacquire King.” 

That chance encounter back in the early 00s turned into a fruitful 10-year relationship with Domino that yielded four albums. 20 years on from the release of this long out of print cult classic, Domino Vault are happy to release a limited hand-numbered repress of their visceral second LP with an alternate black sleeve. Limited to 300 copies, available exclusively on Domino Mart.

Watch the video for “Dart For My Sweetheart” below: