Jack Dean & Company: Beasts of England
Devon based band, Jack Dean & Company, have just released their latest song, ‘Beasts of England’.
By Jack Rush Photo credit: Ben Borley
Jack Dean & Company are a band and artist collective from the wilds of Devon. Their music is a magpie's nest of folk, indie, hip-hop, post-rock and midwest emo. This diverse musical palette forms a backdrop to a mesmeric lyrical opus by award-winning neurodivergent writer and composer Jack Dean, with narrative tying together the old and the new, mythology and pop culture, anarchist theory and living with a super wonky brain. They take the Western Canon and shoot it at the window of your house. Their 2022 concept album and live show Hero & Leander toured the UK extensively, including performances at the South Bank Centre and Beautiful Days. They also create the historical non-fiction podcast Fogland Lighthouse.
Now they are back with their latest song, ‘Beasts of England’. The new release reflects a softer, but no less powerful, side to their work. Borrowing lyrics from Orwell’s song of the same name in “Animal Farm”, Jack Dean & Company have created a resonant musical rendering of the song that feels mournful yet still with a hint of hope.
Earlier this year, Jack Dean & Company released their album, “Tiny Violins”; a blend of folk, hip hop and indie fusing the old and new, mythology and pop culture and anarchist theory. It features anxious, energetic songs such as ‘Bahlegdah’, a humorous song about navigating social situations as a person with autism, to ‘Hares (Child 44)’, a dark contemporary twist on an old folk tale reimagined as a feminist revenge story.
Reflecting on ‘Beasts of England’, writer and composer Jack said: ‘For several months. I didn't want to write anything. A feeling of pointlessness overcame me every time I tried. To try and get past it I started looking for stuff in the public domain that I could interpolate. Nothing was really jumping out at me until I remembered that Orwell wrote some fictional songs in Animal Farm. He described the melody as a “cross between 'La Cucaracha' and 'Clementine'”. But I wanted to make something that was less triumphalist and more mournful. Something that might be found by the animals, decades later, under layers of dust, after generations of defeat and failure, that still rings true.’
Have a listen and connect with Jack Dean:
