In particular, the title track became a thematic touchstone. “We definitely couldn’t see it in the moment,” adds Arnez, “but after seeing all the songs laid out in a list of what we were excited about having on the album, it became pretty clear that there was a thread running through them for sure.” “It was almost like we had to get out of our immediate lives and look at it from above.”
That’s how we were living and what we wrote about – we were realizing how important our relationship was and wanting to make sure that we were actively participating in it so we didn’t repeat mistakes from past relationships,” Stewart says. “We did not sit down and say ‘we want to write a relationship album’ or anything, but I think it was a by-product of what was going on for us personally. Though their thoughts, emotions, and the resulting songs seemed scattered at the time, Stranger Again, the album they released last week via Sleepy Cat Records, would come to be a meditation on preserving relationships as both musicians took stock of the shortcomings and strengths that had gotten them to that point.
It was a tumultuous time for the two of them they had both ended long-term relationships and were settling into a relationship together after years of touring and playing music as friends.
“I remember talking about this after we knew what songs we wanted to put on the record we were hanging out by the pond where we used to live, and I was like, I don’t know how these songs that we’re writing right now are connecting,” remembers Stewart. With a high lonesome twang, an Emmylou-like southern drawl, and blistering guitar techniques, Blue Cactus’ new record Stranger Again exercises the honky-tonk muscles to firmly bear the flag for a new generation of cosmic country practitioners.Back in 2019, as their sophomore record was starting to take shape, Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez, the core members of North Carolina-based country act Blue Cactus, questioned how the record was coming together. Their finest work yet, Blue Cactus resuscitate a fleeting style of honest-to-goodness country music considered valueless to a “new” country music where songwriting is officiated by financial analysts and teams of marketing plutocrats instead of woebegone troubadours. Throughout Stranger Again, they explore loss and longing, self-love and reckoning with personal, political and human struggles. The otherworldliness of the music is a perfect contrast to their distinctly grounded, human storytelling lyrics. Stranger Again is a deep dive into Cosmic American music, with the band taking their sound into ambitious new planes, where country-rock meets light psychedelia as the soaring vocals meet twangy slide-guitars and propulsive bass-lines. The album has received enthusiastic attention from tastemakers including No Depression, American Songwriter, FLOOD Magazine, Talkhouse, and INDY Week among others. Blue Cactus, the North Carolina duo of Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez, make Dream Country: a blend of grit, glitz, groove, and twang that evokes a celestial soundscape of mid-century heartbreak.įollowing their critically acclaimed 2017 debut and a string of singles in 2020 their evolution is made plain on their sophomore LP, Stranger Again, released on Sleepy Cat Records.
0 kommentar(er)
