Moonshine - Vinyle Orange

Description

Amidst massive global paradigm shifts, The War On Drugs bassist Dave Hartley became a father of two and relocated from his native Philadelphia to Asheville, North Carolina, where the pace of daily life is slower and it’s easier to maintain a distanced perspective on modern living. From the new refuge of his home studio, Hartley a.k.a. Nightlands conceived Moonshine, a finely honed collection of pop rock tracks. Guided by some of the harmonic sensibilities that have helped make The War on Drugs a force in contemporary music, Moonshine combines clean yet dense vocal tracks and clouds of effected keyboards with more classic songwriting, thus revealing new surfaces in Nightlands' dreamscape. The album’s surreal cover art, by Austin, Texas-based illustrator Jaime Zuverza, depicts an archway opening to the stars, above an idyllic sea flanked by the moon and sun. Similarly, Moonshine reveals nested portals, leading ever deeper into its vocal labyrinth. Throughout the album, there are plenty of soaring moods where drum machine crackle and digital organ hum allude to Hartley’s understated tropicalist tendencies, but the lyrics anchor the reverie in real-world sorrow and resignation. These sentiments are nowhere more apparent than on the title track, an almost a capella recitation of the patriotic anthem "America the Beautiful" that poignantly hovers over a keyboard mirage before dissolving, in its own words, into the hypocrisy of the American dream. This record was never meant to be overtly political, but Dave decided to vent his anger and frustration over current events in the lyrics. Moonshine's utopian instrumental backdrop offers a striking contrast to the lyrics, which sting even harder in their sweetness. Even if the album focuses on the voice, his history as a bassist shines brilliantly throughout Moonshine, giving effortless and spirited movement to songs like "Down Here", which also features an extended saxophone section, provided by his Western Vinyl labelmate Joseph Shabason. The album features a short list of collaborators, including four members of The War on Drugs, Robbie Bennet, Anthony Lamarca, Eliza Hardy Jones and Charlie Hall, as well as exotica virtuoso Frank Locrasto (Cass McCombs, Fruit Bats) and producer Adam McDaniel (Avey Tare, Angel Olsen). Dave was forced to handle the majority of the work on the album, right down to the mixing, and to deliver the most independent effort of his career. From this perspective, Moonshine is also the clearest picture of Dave Hartley as a person and creator.