Dark Dark Dark
Check out the Daytrotter Session with Dark Dark Dark
If you listen, the story of the band Dark Dark Dark is woven into the haunting songs of their debut album, “The Snow Magic”. It’s a story of love and heartache, death and loneliness and the persistent sense of hope that keeps you living and moving. These familiar themes are tangled up with tales of ghosts, fermenting bodies and magical dreams. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
Since 2006, Dark Dark Dark has crisscrossed the country from ocean to ocean, playing in basements and bars, warehouses and street corners. When Nona Marie Invie (accordion/voice) and Marshall LaCount (banjo/voice) first began to play and write music together, they had no intention of starting a serious band – they just needed a way to earn passage to New Orleans. Marshall had run away from home to spend a summer sailing and singing down the Mississippi river on homemade rafts and Nona had spent time hopping freight trains and wandering across the US and Europe. With no desire to settle down, the two set out, picking up band members Jonathan Kaiser (cello/voice) and Todd Chandler (upright bass) along the way.
Dark Dark Dark’s sound draws heavily on americana and eastern european influences, referencing a long tradition of wandering musicians and those who have lived deeply. Despite the references, it’s clear listening to “The Snow Magic” that this isn’t a band preoccupied with recreating the past. Rather, the band both celebrates the past and looks forward, with songs remembering lost friends (“Junk Bones”, “All The Things”), leaving lovers behind (“Trouble No More”) and casting off the things that hold us back (“A Spell For Letting Go”). With intricate song-craft and playful sensibilities, Dark Dark Dark uses their small array of age-old instruments to conjure a lush musical vision of the future.
Dark Dark Dark: Flood from hoovesontheturf on Vimeo.
Son Lux
Meet a man driven wildly by music. A man classically trained, but rewired with his own two hands. A frequent collaborator, occasional curator and consummate “man behind the curtain” now emerging at the front of something yet unnamed. Somewhere between the concert hall and the club you’ll find his haunting liquid soundscapes, born of hip-hop composition, o’er-strung with chant, hinting at some divine unreachable. Meet Son Lux.
Son Lux is Ryan Lott. After studying composition at Indiana University School of Music, Ryan moved to Cleveland, OH, where he lived for six years, earning a reputation as a versatile and zealous collaborator. Equally at ease in the creative company of choreographers, classical musicians, and break dancers, he cut his teeth spear-heading multi-disciplinary “performance parties,” composing music for modern dance companies, and collaborating with musicians across many genres. His works have been performed throughout the US and Europe, including the Guggenheim’s Works & Process Series in New York City, and the World Saxophone Congress in Slovenia.
In the cracks of time and energy between Ryan’s collaborations, “Son Lux” was born out of an urge to finally set about making an album of his own. It began as an experiment and a personal creative challenge. What Ryan, as Son Lux, wove together over 4 years in his attic studio, is the album many critics call one of the best records of 2008. It is At War With Walls and Mazes, an impressive debut which earned Son Lux the title of “Best New Artist” and “#1 Greatest Unknown Artist of 2008” by NPR.