Dosh's World

In a booth at a neighborhood pub in south Minneapolis, a slumped and bearded Martin Dosh is staring into his beer, tapping his fingers on the table, and talking about a coming performance at the Walker Art Center. It's an evening devoted entirely to his music. The May 3 event has a title, "The World of Dosh," and he's effectively been asked by the museum to curate a tribute to himself, with special appearances by past and current collaborators like whistling indie-rock song-master Andrew Bird and underground hip-hop phenomenon Jel.

"Trying to map it all out is fucking with me," says Dosh, shaking his head. "I'll need a stage manager or something."

Probably he won't. Dosh's art is multitasking.

Onstage and in the studio he makes his music, often alone, in what can best be understood as a cockpit. In the center is a swiveling drummer's stool, and with a push from one foot, he can turn to face a drum set, his vintage electric piano, or a small table with a tangle of cables, effects machines, and a synthesizer.

The catalog of Dosh's stage and studio collaborations reads like a record-store clerk's year-end best list: Andrew Bird, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Tapes 'n Tapes, Devendra Banhart, Peanut Butter Wolf, Happy Apple, the Bad Plus, the Jayhawks, Atmosphere—it goes on and on.

"He's been this enigmatic, brilliant figure in the background," says Philip Bither, curator for performing arts at the Walker. "He's somewhere between the worlds of experimental music and pop." Bither lists the genres Dosh's music and collaborations have inhabited: contemporary classical, electronic, improvisational jazz, hip hop, and rock. "He's somebody who can find links between all of those styles and do something fresh and intelligent," says Bither, "and that's rare."

Slowly, Dosh has been stepping to the fore. His next full-length under the Dosh moniker, Wolves and Wishes, is his fourth, but there is a sense—as his recordings and his performances evolve into ever more accomplished and complex endeavors—that he is just beginning.

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