jasper dean punches down on indie sleaze with electrifying “TELEMONKEY”

A tape first plays a tiny synth jingle, then it’s fast-forwarded to an upbeat, whirring dance-punk melody recalling the intergenerational likes of Le Tigre, The Go! Team, and The Dare. Incendiary, jagged riffs are elevated by dean’s fictional recount of a super cool, classic car-driving, coke-sniffing monkey who is totally style over substance.

It's a humorous nod to the exaggerated debauchery of the indie sleaze revival when it was still amorphous. Now, with the scene’s blown-out electroclash sound all the rage again, “TELEMONKEY” is a bona fide fiery party starter, one of many combustible bangers set to make waves from dean’s upcoming debut record, TOY COLLAGES, out 3 July.

The chaotic, colourful sonic patchwork of dean’s music is owed to their imaginative creativity from a young age. During elementary school, they took a liking to film composition, then naturally discovered composing films on a computer, and the world of digitally produced music. At 11 years old, dean’s parents gave them a CD copy of FL Studio 9. After experimenting with electronic music creation, it’s no surprise their genre diversity snowballed from there. “I was very much an EDM kid,” dean says. “I also listened to a lot of rock and punk growing up; my dad is super into punk, and my mom is into all types of goth and new wave music. This album is all of that coming together into one.”

Today, dean is a 22-year-old solo multi-instrumentalist, film artist, and model who’s worked with CELINE – each of these avenues is poured equally into their songs. Musically, dean points to Dayton, Ohio’s ‘90s avant-garde indie rock band Brainiac as their ultimate inspiration: “They made some super crazy future music. It still sounds so new.” Others are more usual suspects – Gang of Four, The B-52’s, Devo, and Ween – as well as contemporary stars like underscores, who’d taken hyperpop into guitar-driven territory.

Dean borrows all their stylistic flourishes and mixes them in a blender, making that infectious concoction their own. “I spent so much of my career chasing a sound, just lots of lots of singles and trying to figure it out,” they explain. “I always wanted to make a record that was noisy or aggressive in sound, and I finally got the confidence to do it when I made the album.”

TOY COLLAGES’ first taster was “FREAKING IT OUT”, a frenzied, synth-punk racket using that said blend. Doused by dean’s soft-spoken voice intensifying with delirium, it establishes the record’s throughline of confronting young universal anxieties and identity crises. This fits the four parameters of the record’s creation dean gave themselves: “It had to be in your face, it had to be energetic. One of the original rules just said ‘noise, noise, noise, noise, noise’; and it had to be fun to make.”

Over the course of writing and producing it, that existentialism just naturally emerged. “I started noticing more patterns coming out and started leaning heavier into those.” Upon learning “TELEMONKEY” was “originally really grimy-sounding and noisy,” its brighter quality serves as a purposeful respite from the record’s subtle gloom.

There’s so much life brewing in dean’s musical world. They play every single instrument recorded on the album, so having this “impossibly written band music” astonishingly come to life on stage with four people is wonderful. They’re eager to play more and even deliver some solo shows.

Dean is “returning to the real world” with this album. In an era where human-made artistry is continually encroached by dystopian forces such as AI, dean’s ambitious, independent vision is incredibly inspiring and refreshing for any DIY musician. TOY COLLAGES is just the beginning of the ride: “The end goal is to get as many like-minded people as I can to listen and be a part of this world I’m making.”