#new shadows

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Don't Starve Together: From Beyond - Terrors Below Update [Update Trailer]

Am I the only one who got the feeling that our beloved Queen Charlie is playing literal 3D chess here?

[nugothrhythms]

“Shadows” by Asheville, North Carolina-based dark nu disco and EBM band Cold Choir off of their 2019 release New Shadows

[musiconspotify]

Jerry David DeCicca New Shadows (2023) … avant-Americana …

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Jerry David DeCicca - Sing

[dustedmagazine]

Jerry David DeCicca — New Shadows (Bwatue)

Jerry David DeCicca once fronted the dark folk Black Swans, alongside his friend Noel Sayre, a soulful foil on violin, who tragically died in a swimming pool accident in 2008. DeCicca kept going, first as Black Swans, later under his own name, building a catalogue of subtle, country flavored songs, some heartbreaking in their simplicity, others giddy and adorned with animal sounds. Along the way, he has shepherded a slew of long-lost country singers through their re-emergence, producing late career albums for Ed Askew, Chris Gantry, Augie Meyers and Will Beely. He seemed a lot like the icons he worked with, a master craftsman unfairly overlooked. Of his last album before this, I wrote, “This album distills the craft and struggle of music making into gorgeous, deceptively simple-sounding songs like it’s nothing, but it’s not nothing, far from it.”

Cut to this fifth solo album, and it is somewhat disorienting to find DeCicca’s mordant murmur enmeshed in a gothy web of synthesizers. His worn-in country sprech-song holds court in shimmery electric architectures. The keyboards glow in the dark. He follows programmed pulses that hurtle onward even as he pauses to consider. Even so, it still sounds like DeCicca, the lyrics are casually incisive, the humor a little goofy, the melodies rebel country at a very high level, but it also sounds like the inside of a disco.

The album reflects the disruptive events of the last few years, in lyrics that describe a video funeral (“Sing”) and in others that mark the listless passage of time (“I know life ain’t a free ride, wash up, dishes are piling high, lost days, lost days” from “Lost Days”). The use of electronics may also be an artifact of that pandemic period where live collaboration became difficult; this may have lasted longer for DeCicca than other people, given some recent health troubles.

But also the pandemic opened up collaboration for a lot of artists, in ways that ignored physical proximity. I don’t know if that’s the case for this group of players, but they are a remarkably diverse group—two old hands from Los Lobos (David Hidalgo and Steve Berlin), a brace of new jazz tyros (James Brandon Lewis, Jeff Parker and Aquiles Navarro of Irresistible Entanglements) and the wonderful Rosali Middleton. They bring depth and color and human roughness to these unusually pristine electronic tracks. Listen, for instance, to the two sax players, Steve Berlin with his guttural, low-end swagger in “97 Nights,” Lewis more refined and fluid but just as soulful on contemplative “Lost Days.” Or consider the burning blues guitar licks that David Hidalgo adds to “Sing,” all smoke and sinew amid the synths and keyboards. He reminds me of prime era Mark Knopfler in the way he bends the notes and coaxes them to moan.

Yet fundamentally this is DeCicca’s show, and its success rides on his songwriting ability. Not to worry. “Angelina” is one of his finest songs ever, a still one full of darkness and yearning, and the curlicues of trumpets that Navarro adds amplify, but don’t overwhelm its gorgeous simplicity. “Manzanita Bay” is another good one, a little mournful as presented here, but you could imagine it turning into a sing-along stomper in other, less ruminative hands.

New Shadows is a bit of a departure, and its New Order-style goth-dance framing takes some getting used to. But it’s still DeCicca, still one of the best songwriters going, just through a different lens.

Jennifer Kelly

[diamonddeposits]

Pop that beats with a heavy (heavenly) synth beat. This is S T FU and we can’t even stop talking about this duo composed of  Dean Garcia (Curve) and Preston Maddox (Bloody Knives) coming together to create something totally memorable. Have a listen to New Shadows pulled from their fantastic LP What We Want via their Bandcamp and get to know this dream pop duo better! 

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New shadows from Makeup Geek

(left - right, top - bottom)

Rockstar, Glass Slipper 

Shark Bait, Barcelona Beach, Pop Culture

Image from Makeup Geek, click here to see her swatches and more details.

[serendipityandmarigolds]