Close your eyes and listen to the voices of Drew & Luke and the sound of the tambourine. With the anthem of Let’s All Sing Together and the messages of bringing change, watch out for these two and how their music makes people feel. Prior to COVID-19, they would usually collaborate virtually and halfway across the world from each other. Now, quarantined together in Los Angeles, Drew & Luke are using this time to recharge and create. Heavily influenced by the music of the 1970s, you can hear that through this single. Instrumentally, the song effectively balances out the key sounds of the piano, the intertwining of applause, and the tambourine ringing at all the right spots. When thinking about musically who Drew & Luke sounds like, I’m drawn to find similarities with Dr. Dog, Fleet Foxes, and even a dash of Vampire Weekend. Though both musically and lyrically, Let’s All Sing Together will without a doubt stand time post COVID-19 and anchor an impactful start for a new world for Drew & Luke to be a part of.
Liar For A Muse enchants listeners with Ben DeLaurentis’s smooth and sultry voice. Throughout the album, raw emotions and his vivid storytelling highlights the qualities of his acoustic Americana. A standout track, Fill In The Blanks has poignant revealing lyrics such as “I’ll fill your mouth with words that you’ll never say”. As the album progresses it shifts back and forth from inner reflecting to story telling of memories of unrequited love, life, and everything in between. His sound and music will remind listeners of Iron & Wine, Conor Oberst, and Devendra Banhart. DeLaurentis’ Liar For A Muse exemplifies a well rounded album, as it takes listeners through journeys of the past, present, and future.
Add one more notch on Brantford, Ontario’s belt. The city is the birthplace of Wayne Gretzky and Phil Hartman, and it is where Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. It also houses the six members of the rising Indie/Rock band Racoon Wedding. Racoon can be spelled with one C or two. I thought I’d obviate the spelling lesson.
Racoon Wedding is the music equivalent of what I would expect a raccoon wedding to be like: electric eccentricity, amicable drunkenness, poppy humor, and, most importantly, horn-fueled raccoon love. So, yeah, that odd comparison holds true for the sextet from telephone city.
Come tomorrow with the release of the new LP, Racoon Dead on the Side of the Road, the band will have successfully depicted the joy of raccoon passion and friendship (which the name of the band implies) and the harsh inevitability of death at the hand of a metal box traveling at speeds no raccoon can match. Who knew that they were a concept band?
All kidding aside, I’ve grown attached to the bluesy, Dr. Dog/Kay Kay and the Weathered Underground quirkiness and musical whimsicality of Racoon Wedding. With some bands (and I could feel this prior to watching the buddy/buddy bacchanal video below), you just know that friends are making music. And not like friends until some success presents itself and then “I’m going solo” becomes an overplayed comment. Friends who are friends who happen to make good music and have fun doing it. This comes through in the tunes, and it is one heck of a positive with Racoon Wedding.
The band is haphazardly touring throughout Ontario, but I do hope this post helps give them some more play in the States. Fraternal harmonies, New Orleans horns, and pop rhythms, when mixed effectively tend to engender popularity, and I predict good things for Racoon Wedding in the future.
The opening piano riff plays like a more bluesy version of a Jukebox the Ghost piece. The lead vocal is course-grained with a hint of southern cooking. The harmonies come from all angles and are extremely effective. Throw in some drunken horns (in the best possible way) and a taste of jazz/ragtime/period drums and you have a great song. Make sure to check out the rest of the album. Here is some information
The Music Court 