THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Dip are a Seattle R&B bandknown for poignant songwriting, detailed arrangements, and vintage sound. Featuring a three-piece horn section, the group’s music harkens back to earlier soul and funk influences while hinting at the jazz foundations that brought the band’s members together.
Love Direction, the followup to 2022’s Sticking With It (which landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Current R&B Albums Chart) is the band’s fourth full-length studio album. Despite the title, it isn’t a collection of straightforward love songs, but an investigation into the different angles and challenges that relationships can bring. Expanding on the album’s theme, Tom Eddy notes “These aren’t love songs in the most obvious sense. They deal with the middle stages, the hinterlands of love and life together — figuring someone out and what they need, learning how to communicate, and examining your own faults. We set out to write music that felt more grown, a little wiser. The songs that emerged all pointed in the Love Direction.”
The Dip blend the best parts of funk and soul street music with the bounce of rock n’ roll dance halls to create timeless songs of love and life. Love Direction is the first time in the band’s career they have relinquished complete control. The group produced the record themselves and enlisted audio engineer Josh Block, who contributed a lush addition to the 11-song collection along with a full spread of talented guest musicians across the tracks. Distant horns, funkier guitars and even a touch of pedal steel guitar from Will Van Horn on the introspective Fill My Cup, The Dip sound as crisp as ever while exploring new sonic territories. The result makes for a fresh, loose mood that feels equally familiar to the band’s earlier work and a confident, bold re-introduction that features some more nuanced and intimate moments highlighting the ways in which the band has matured.”
