Peach & Quiet promise to get it right This Time in their striking new single and video — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The latest preview of the West Coast duo’s 2023 album Beautiful Thing, This Time is a magnificently moody and darkly beautiful slow-burner that walks the line between vintage Laurel Canyon psychedelic folk, southern soul and old-school Nashville country. In the live video above — shot at Stoney Pocket on Pender Island, B.C. — it leans toward the former with its multi-layered guitars, shivery vocals and mellow vibe. In the studio version below, it veers in a more southerly direction. Against a swampy, smoky backdrop of tastefully intertwining guitars, shimmering organ lines, chiming keyboards, glistening steel guitar and a mournfully twangy solo, Heather Read shares a vow of rebirth, renewal and redemption:
“Part of me had to die along the way
Preconceptions overturn
Some bridges need to burn
While you wait for me
I don’t know why
You’re safe for me
Like a lullaby
You wait for me
And this time I’ll get it right.”
Truth is, the duo of Read and Jonny Miller have been doing plenty right in the two years since they reached out to the world from their log home on Canada’s West Coast with their debut album Just Beyond The Shine. In a few short months, that record topped the folk and roots music charts in North America and had airplay around the world. Reviewers raved, calling it “a basket of surprises’” ‘superb”, “sublime”, “utterly original.” The album received praise across Canada, the U.S., Britain and Europe, and land on several best-of-the-year lists. Just Beyond The Shine was also named BBC Scotland‘s Record of the Week.
Now, the duo are set to release their second album Beautiful Thing in early 2023.This collection of 12 original songs has elements of Americana, blues, rock and overtones of 1970s psychedelic rock that came from Laurel Canyon. Beautiful Thing is produced & backed up with electric, pedal steel and slide guitar by Nashville string wizard Steve Dawson (Henhouse Studios) and features a lineup of star players: Chris Gestrin (keys), Jeremy Holmes (bass) and Gary Craig (drums).
As one reviewer said, Peach & Quiet sound like they have been playing together for 30 years. So it’s hard to believe that it was only in 2019 that Jonny and Heather found each other, emotionally, spiritually and musically. They quickly discovered the joy of singing, playing and writing together, with Heather’s clear alto a perfect foil to Jonny’s slightly gritty “character voice.”
Heather and Jonny were both born to play music. Her dad was an active Hammond organ player well into his 80s, and played gigs four nights a week for nearly 70 years, even opening for a upcoming singer called Tom Jones in his native Wales. Heather sang with him at legion halls when she was four. She took a break from music to pursue a master’s degree and to work in the publishing industry. She moved to Victoria in 2013 and returned to her music by night, starting local folk bands and songwriter circles.
Jonny grew up on the West Coast and was steeped in music from an early age. His mom was the first female radio engineer in Western Canada and worked at Co-op Radio in Vancouver. His dad is a reggae DJ in the U.S. and introduced Jonny to reggae and California rock as a very young child. Jonny remembers sleeping under a table at a Bob Marley sound check. He started earning a name as a singer-songwriter 30 years ago and has won Vancouver Island Music Awards and a People’s Choice award for his video Home in the Victoria Film Festival.
Heather and Jonny have created a new album of magic together on their new labour of love Beautiful Thing. it’s their way of announcing that even in these troubled times, there is hope, courage, and gratitude, that life in these time is in indeed “a beautiful thing.”
Watch a live performance or listen to the studio version of This Time above, hear more from Peach & Quiet below, and spend some time at their website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
