SKINNY DYCK’S NEW LP, EASYGOING, OUT TOMORROW VIA VICTORY POOL RECORDS
WATCH / SHARE “LESS STRESS” HERE
PRE-SAVE EASYGOING HERE
CANADIAN TOUR DATES COMMENCE NOVEMBER 20
Photo Credit : Heather Saitz DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Tomorrow, Skinny Dyck - the playful performing artistic alias of Western Canadian artist Ryan Dyck, is releasing Easygoing, the new full-length album out via Victory Pool Records. His sophomore, adventurous americana LP presents an elegant, subtle shift away from traditional country music. Following on the heels of 2022's Palace Waiting, which “distilled the spirit of wide-cut country,” (Exclaim!), Easygoing sees Dyck moving a few steps further away from the country music environs he once wholly inhabited. But, fear not twang fans, rather than replacing that sound wholesale, he and his studio collaborators have instead created their own hybrid approaches. Or, as Dyck puts it, “I still like to collect my mail at the old shack off the highway, but I no longer want to live there exclusively.”
To celebrate the album’s release, Dyck is sharing the new video for “Less Stress”. “Maybe the drone-like guitar and backing vocal are a fragment of my own religious experience - married lyrically with the incessant pacing around the house that Shaela does when on the phone,” he says of the song. “I find myself feeling less stressed when the journey starts, and anxious towards the end. What now? A new breath of life like the soft return and release of the door as a baby sleeps upstairs but the floor still creaks. A psychedelic guitar burnout at the end for posterity I guess.”
WATCH / SHARE “LESS STRESS” HERE
MORE ABOUT EASYGOING
Recorded in basements and ad-hoc studio environments by Skinny and his co-producer Aladean Kheroufi, the album's diverse textures are well-balanced by twangy guitars and steel alongside less expected elements like synth hooks and congas. There is a pleasing straightforwardness to the music of Skinny Dyck. His voice is clean and clear (and usually nestled in a bed of lush reverb), the songs are held together with spacious instrumentation and smart, tasty hooks (including Dyck's signature pedal steel work), and the band is right on the money, everything in its right place and not a note wasted. This shouldn't come as a surprise, as Kheroufi (a multi-faceted musician and songwriter in his own right) applied some of the old school, minimalist recording techniques he picked up while interning at Daptone Records years ago, and he has been at the core of Skinny's live band (alongside drummer Clayton Smith) for the last handful of years. So when Dyck and Kheroufi (along with main album drummer Cameron O'Neill) hit the basement to lay down these songs, it was as easy as slipping into a pair of old jeans. And that sprightly, jazz-inflected lead guitar work comes courtesy of Winnipeg's Austin Parachoniak, who helped bring a whiff of Merle Haggard's '80s band to the mix.
WATCH / SHARE “OUT OF CONTROL” HERE
Easygoing had its finishing touches applied by the prime candidate for the role, celebrated mix engineer Mark Nevers, whose credit list is a veritable who's who of fresh, forward thinking songwriters and bands that exist in the between-genre sphere. Artists such as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Silver Jews, Calexico, Andrew Bird, Bill Callahan, and Lambchop have benefited from Nevers' touch, a blend of his trusted ears and vintage analog gear. As a mixer who began working in the traditional Country & Western scenes and slowly gravitated to the more expansive world of indie music, Nevers was a fitting choice for the job.
WATCH / SHARE “CAN’T CHANGE THE COLOUR OF YOUR EYES” HERE
And this notion of “country but not” courses through Easygoing in a pretty tangible way, its success partially measured by how unnoticeable it is. Take “Nosedive” for example – what might be one of the album's more traditional “boots kickin' up dust” kind of song features a deeply psychedelic spoken word outro, with enigmatic vocals bubbling through a thick web of analog delay; it's truly a unique blend of approaches – and it works. Elsewhere, things continue to pair nicely, with conga drums undercutting sparkling lead guitar and the occasional synth flourish, and “Lean In” features a delicious bass line that sounds as if it was plucked straight from a vintage James Jamerson-played Motown track. The combination of the band's cool chug and Dyck's classic songwriting moves on title track “Easygoing” recall the endless-horizon feel of classic War on Drugs, another band who've managed to successfully infuse the familiar with a jolt of something new.
PRE-SAVE EASYGOING HERE
SKINNY DYCK ON TOUR
Nov 20 - Hamilton ON - Mills Hardware
Nov 21 - Toronto ON - Baby G
Nov 22 - Chelsea QC - Motel Chelsea
Nov 23 - Guelph ON - Sonic Hall
EASYGOING TRACKLIST
1.Easygoing
2.Baby Oh Well
3.Part Of Me
4.Lean In
5.Can't Change the Colour of Your Eyes
6.Where I'm Going
7.Nosedive
8.Less Stress
9.I Don't Drink
10.Out Of Control
11.One Extra Smile
12.And Then One Day