THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “On her fifth album Golden Hour In The House Of Lugosi, Kate Vargas draws closer to the truth of her uniquely nuanced, jazz- and blues-inflected “junkyard folk.” On these 11 songs, she tints her metaphoric storytelling and maverick, outlier Americana with maturing perspectives, folklore from her native New Mexico, and literature at large.
“I’ve been thinking about what it means to be human,” mulled Vargas, chatting from the San Francisco studio where she recordedthe album. “I feel like I’m getting away from that with so much technology, screens, and related avoidance of certain feelings.”
Dusty, darkly romantic, and emotionally raw, Golden Hour In The House Of Lugosi wraps Vargas’s signature gravelly melodies in rootsy acoustic instrumentation and quirky percussion, her voice enhanced by the sublime harmonizing of The Reckless Daughters (sister Lizzy Vargas and Lena Kaminsky). At once confessionally intimate and sepia-toned cinematic, it’s a quietly riotous album of deep grooves, smoldering moods, and wry worldliness, it’s intrigue and curiosity embroidered with Vargas’s deft wordplay, palpable charisma and crisp, cultured phrasing.
A wide-eyed childhood in the charming New Mexico village of Corrales, rich in Mexican and Southwestern oral tradition, still permeates Vargas’s work, shaped by her Berklee music education and years of international touring. “I was fortunate to grow up with a mother who, if we said we were bored, would say, ‘Well, go outside and pretend something’,” Vargas recalled. “In a place like Corrales, with two paved roads and no stoplight, you can do that.”
Vargas’s singular sound is rooted in open-hearted genre hopping; subtle, soulful sensuality; and a girlish yet textured, old-soul timbre in the tradition of Nina Simone and Eartha Kitt (once wonderfully described as “a favorite bourbon come to life”). Keeping her recording process as live and spontaneous as possible while shunning production sheen keeps Golden Hour In The House Of Lugosi late-night intimate, vivaciously visceral, and refreshingly authentic.
With a band of longtime friends and collaborators, Vargas sought to revisit the stripped-down, largely acoustic spirit of her 2018 For The Wolfish & Wandering album, a few years wiser yet with her resonant lyricism and playful smirk fully intact. Melding her perennial guiding stars Simone, Tom Waits, PJ Harvey and Leonard Cohen to textured dive-bar vocals and irreverent yet meticulously selected “junkyard” found-object percussion instruments lends Golden Hour In The House Of Lugosi a smoky yet hopeful aura all its own. Equally of the head and the heart, it’s one of those rare records that manages to sound instinctive and cerebral all at once, it’ ostensibly conversational narratives in fact delving deep into the human condition.
The album’s title is a reference to actor Bela Lugosi being forever typecast as Dracula, and how we can all fall into adhering to a character cast upon us by others, or even by ourselves, until life shines just the right light — the “golden hour” of the title — for us to see a more authentic self. “Living can be kind of a slog, and especially right now can feel incredibly dark,” Vargas offered. “Finding those bits of light when the sun comes in at just the right angle can make things look different, hopeful, and you find a bit of joy in an unexpected moment.”
