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Dollboy is Oliver Cherer, an English artist who makes quiet, reflective semi-organic music, a hybrid of analog electronic sounds, innovative soundprocessing and percussive acoustic instrumentation.

A Beard of Bees is a highly polished Horse Brass of a record that collectively re-imagines a time of psychedelic pastoral whimsy, whilst jet age morris dancers drink pints of timothy taylors with Kevin Ayers.As much Elgar’s Nimrod as National Health’s’ Of Queues and Cures’

‘A musical non-musical, a spectacular non spectacular, a fantasy with realist aspirations’.

Written and recorded by Oliver Cherer except “He Went Down To The Sea” which is by the Monks

A Beard of Bees is Oliver’s first song based album, his previous releases, Plans for a modern city (2004, Different Drummer) and Casual Nudism (2006, Arable) being instrumental records on which he created lullaby-like structures, blending together old-fashioned folk melodies and warm electronic soundscapes, with Philip Glass-style loops interspersed with scattering beats.

Interest in modal music, in particularly Miles Davis 1960s records, inspired Oliver to start learning about the melody, and made him switch from composing on a computer with a sequencer to writing more fully formed tunes using guitar or piano or even glockenspiel.

Like an English Victorian artist, Oliver’s curiosity has led him to exploring and mixing found and dusty instruments together with peculiar showpiece technology. From 1942 glass toy glockenspiel, Brixton market bongos, flute, viola, toy piano, 50s jazz guitar played with vibraphone mallets and questionable recordings of the Austrian flood warning siren and Stanstead Express, to Gnat, a strange little English synthesizer with no keyboard, VCS3 and Korg synths, the balance of instruments on this album leans towards the organic and acoustic.

The inspiration for the album is varied and ranges from tea drinking (One Liner) and geographical references (California refers to a place in the Midlands called new Invention), to more ethereal matters such as drifting through life without aim (a beard of bees), and infinity / “bigness is frightening”, another particular kind of particularly English view of the world (Endless). There are even songs about generation “gaps” (jet age kids), prog jokes (Lead Boots), and a sea-shanty written in response to Melville’s Moby Dick (O Ahab!). Perhaps, the thread going through all the themes is Oliver’s “meditation” on Englishness.

Creating post-post-industrial urban-folk, Dollboy has existed in one form or another since the first show at The Garage in 1999, where the iconic performance included a saw, a vinyl killer, Japanese poetry and live eating of pork pies.

As a live act Dollboy has developed into one of the The Big Chill and Arctic Circle favourites, performing as a seven piece band as well as a solo acoustic act, constantly morphing and developing.