Lightning Dust raise a spectre, Bedouin Soundclash aim for mass appeal, Kacy and Clayton carry on and more this week. I didn’t have time to write about these albums, but I gave them a quick scan and liked what I heard. Check them out below, along with quotes from their press releases. I’ve included Bandcamp links where possible so you can buy the music straight from the source — assuming you like what you hear too.
Lightning Dust
Spectre
THE PRESS RELEASE: “In Spectre, their 4th album as Lightning Dust, Amber Webber and Josh Wells embrace as their sole-focus what was once a side-project, thus crafting their most refined and powerful album to date. After co-founding and touring with Black Mountain for over a decade, the duo departed from the band to further their own longterm creative partnership. Lightning Dust has evolved noticeably with each release, from the spare, dark folk of their self-titled debut, to the synth and drum machine-heavy 2013 album Fantasy. The tracks on Spectre echo the spirits of quintessential rock vocalists like Grace Slick and Beth Gibbons, throughout a collection of songs that range from expertly sculpted folk-rock ear candy, to sparse Judee Sill-esque ballads consisting of little more than piano and voice.”
Bedouin Soundclash
Mass
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Nearly a decade since their last record, Jay Malinowski and Eon Sinclair, better known as duo Bedouin Soundclash, return with their fifth studio album. While pulling from their old catalogue of eclectic post-punk world-beat tendencies, the band journeys further into New Orleans jazz, afro-pop, electronic and gospel on their latest offering, reflecting a creative rebirth influenced by the cities and musicians that surrounded them. Co-produced by Bedouin Soundclash and legendary Philadelphia House DJ King Britt, along with musical direction from Ben Jaffe of Preservation Hall, Mass spans two communities, recorded at Marigny Studios in New Orleans with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and in Vancouver at St. James Church with the children of the St. James Music Academy. Mirroring the magnetic energy of New Orleans, Mass is a dense sonic journey that incorporates an impressive array of musical influences including Big Band swing to New Orleans jazz, pop, electronica, and more. From the post-punk-soca of album opener Salt Water, the jangling Big Band swing-pop of recent single Clockwork, to the Talking Heads-channelling When We’re Gone, and the dubbing afro-pop gospel of Holy that features Mike Dillon distorting his marimbas into another sonic dimension, Mass is jam-packed with infectious melodies and summery feel-good vibes.”
Kacy & Clayton
Carrying On
THE PRESS RELEASE: “The music Kacy & Clayton make is inextricable from where they grew up. The second cousins sing about the kind of people you’d find in Wood Mountain, Saskatchewan (population very few). The hills, barns, and remoteness of the area are in these songs, with a bittersweet acknowledgement that this music has taken them far from home. Their sound is equal parts homespun, coming from a family and community where playing music is an ever present part of social gatherings, and the rare country, blues, and English folk rock they obsess over and collect. It’s an arresting amalgamation of psychedelic folk, English folk revival and the ancestral music of Southern Appalachia. For Carrying On, Clayton cites as influences: Bobbie Gentry’s Delta Sweete, Hoyt Axton’s My Griffin Is Gone, Cajun fiddle music, and the steel guitar of Ralph Mooney, who played on many of the records that defined the Bakersfield country music scene of the 1950s. Sixties psych has also woven its way into these new songs; Kacy enjoys telling people that they live 250km from the mental hospital that coined the term “psychedelic.”
Micah Erenberg
Love Is Gonna Find You
THE PRESS RELEASE: “The hardest thing to say is how you feel because then it becomes real. While Canada’s Micah Erenberg knows the risk in wearing your heart on your sleeve, the 26-year-old understands the importance of a shared experience. One that can make someone feel brighter, understood, less alone. Love Is Gonna Find You is the songwriter’s highly anticipated second album, Micah Erenberg is lifting his listeners into a sphere of delicate fulfillment, painting loneliness as a universal craving for human connection over his narratives of getting sober, rain soaked mornings and searching for something bigger than ourselves.”
Iron Kingdom
On The Hunt
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Inspired by legendary pillars of heavy metal such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, The Scorpions, and Rush, Iron Kingdom is well known for their energetic and electrifying stage presence, as well as intricate musical melodies that bring listeners back to a time when the genre was in its prime. Formed in Surrey, Canada, in June of 2011, Iron Kingdom’s intent was to fill the gap of bands that are heavy, but not extreme, melodic but not mainstream, technical but approachable. As of 2019, with a new lineup and a new album On The Hunt, Iron Kingdom will once again be ready to take the world by storm and aid in the revival of the mighty and classic sounds of Traditional Heavy Metal.”
Art of Dying
Armageddon
THE PRESS RELEASE: “Vancouver’s hard-rock icons Art of Dying have been able to create muscular, vivacious hard-rock bursting with lung-shattering choruses and a sincerity that is impossible to fake. Equally at home with a lead-fingered riff or a deft slow-burner, there is an ease of breadth in AOD’s repertoire. Now, with two critically-acclaimed and widely-played major label releases under their belts, Art Of Dying are returning with album Armageddon, their most imperious effort to date. “It’s a dark record,” says frontman Jonny Hetherington. “Even the cover art (featuring NYC artist Stefano Losi’s painting of Pharaoh Thutmose III) is inspired by the album title. Thutmose lead the historic battle in Megiddo (aka Armageddon), the first war in history where proper records were kept and a body count was taken.”
