SKINNY DYCK’S NEW LP, EASYGOING, OUT OCTOBER 25, 2024 VIA VICTORY POOL RECORDS
WATCH / SHARE “OUT OF CONTROL” HERE
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PRE-SAVE EASYGOING HERE
Photo Credit : Heather Saitz DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, Skinny Dyck - the playful performing artistic alias of Western Canadian artist Ryan Dyck, is announcing 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.”
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.
Following previous singles “Can’t Change The Colour Of Your Eyes”, and the album’s title track, “Easygoing”, today Dyck is sharing the new track, “Out Of Control”, which was recorded in a few different basements, one with a hot tub babbling in the background.
“Sometimes a relationship finds itself in a place where one person is holding on and the other is long gone,” Dyck says of the song. “This song nods to that hard situation, where attempts to save what's left push someone further away - in this case finding a new partner/old friend in the night life. Buy tickets to Paris and they'll never love you less. You're outside a Stop 'n Go at 4 am trying to find thirty five cents 'cause you lost your charger. Suddenly there's so much to say, but it's too late. Accept that a time may come when you have to let go of your Fender Twin Reverb if you can’t shoulder its weight, let alone the emotional baggage it represents.”
WATCH / SHARE “OUT OF CONTROL” HERE
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MORE ABOUT EASYGOING
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.
LISTEN / SHARE “EASYGOING” HERE
BUY / STREAM “EASYGOING” 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.
WATCH / SHARE “CAN’T CHANGE THE COLOUR OF YOUR EYES” HERE
BUY / STREAM “CAN’T CHANGE THE COLOUR OF YOUR EYES” HERE
EASYGOING TRACKLIST
01 Nosedive
02 Easygoing
03 Baby Oh Well
04 Part Of Me
05 Can't Change The Colour Of Your Eyes
06 Where I'm Going
07 Out Of Control
08 Lean In
09 Less Stress
10 One Extra Smile
11 And Then One Day
TOUR DATES // TICKETS HERE
Sept 20 - Cremona, AB - The Windmill
Sept 21 - Turner Valley, AB - Beneath The Arch, Flare & Derrick Community Hall
