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Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves’ “electro-country” sound is both freshly nostalgic and startlingly unique. Hard-driving synthesizer licks meet tight three-part vocal harmonies, buttery bloops and bleeps, crying pedal steel, and pounding electronic beats in the band’s first full-length record, “The Best of Your Lies.”
Owen Lake’s debut EP, “A Love on My Mind” (2009), introduced the band’s genre-bending style, which draws from the traditions of 1960s country, 1980s dream pop, and modern electronic dance music, mixed with an experimental aesthetic all Lake’s own. With “The Best of Your Lies,” Lake expands and deepens the electro-country sound, blending a honky-tonk barroom atmosphere with late-night dance-club delirium and the faded glamour of a sweeping countrypolitan string orchestra. It packs an emotional punch to the heart, and beckons the bruised listener onto the dance floor.
The album’s title track, an Owen Lake original (one of two composed by children’s book author and fiddle player Anica Mrose Rissi with composer and electronic musician Jeff Snyder, who is also Lake’s producer, manager, and doppelganger), narrates a desperate plea to a straying lover, from a betrayed spouse who prefers to remain in the dark. Pedal steel floats over Lake’s bittersweet country croon and vocoded harmony, while smooth strings and a honkytonk fiddle converse with a sharp-edged, syncopated drumbeat and subtly funky bassline.
The album offers electro-country twists on both well-loved and forgotten classics. “I’ll Be There to Welcome You Home” (originally performed by George Jones and Melba Montgomery) pairs twin fiddles with the most intense, pummeling waltz beat ever committed to vinyl. The song explodes into a synth-bass arpeggio and rock-guitar maelstrom, and ends in a soul-stirring a cappella hymn. “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone” (a Carter Family cover) features dark vocoder chords brooding over an acid bassline and punchy odd-meter drum machine. A flanger-drenched string section enters to expand space and time in the final verse. “Always, Always” (made famous by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton) contrasts an open, soaring male-female duet against the stark and menacing undertones of a buzzy bass synth and a rough snare. The chorus crescendos with the digital shine of FM synthesizer low brass, echoing fiddle, and twangy baritone guitars. One imagines a sudden camera cut to burning trashcans in an alley as an atonal guitar solo slices through the middle of the track, before the final rousing chorus gives way to an extended instrumental dance outro.
Lake’s stellar stage band, The Tragic Loves, is joined on the album by Grammy-nominated jazz pianist Pascal Le Boeuf (Le Boeuf Brothers), Pulitzer Prize and Grammy winner Caroline Shaw (Roomful of Teeth, Kanye West), pedal steel virtuoso Rich Hinman (Roseanne Cash, Neko Case), and experimental pedal steel pioneer Susan Alcorn (Mary Halvorsen Octet). Music videos for two of the songs, “The Best of Your Lies” and “Wicked Heart,” created by visual artist Jessica Segall and robotics artist Ryan Luke Johns, will precede the release. Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves will perform record release shows at Shapeshifter Lab in Brooklyn, NY (November 29), and Princeton Public Library in Princeton, NJ (November 10). Come listen and cry along to “the new sound of country.”
1. Wicked Heart (Anica Mrose Rissi, Jeff Snyder) 2:56
2. Always, Always (Joyce McCord) 4:57
3. I’m Glad to Have Her Back Again (Donald Lytle) 3:57
4. I’ll Be There to Welcome You Home (Melba Montgomery, Carl Montgomery) 3:27
5. Pardon Me, I’ve Got Someone to Kill (Johnny Paycheck, Aubrey Mayhew) 3:22
6. Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone (A.P. Carter) 2:52
7. The Best of Your Lies (Anica Mrose Rissi, Jeff Snyder) 4:15
8. After the Fire Is Gone (L.E. White) 3:25
9. Mr. Fool (Darrell Edwards, George Jones, Herby Treece) 2:27
10. Long Black Veil (Marijohn Wilkin, Danny Dill) 3:57
11. Texas Crapshooter (Hugh Farr) 2:52
12. Holding on to Nothing (Jerry Chestnut) 3:02
Owen Lake: vocals, synthesizers, and drum programming
Pamela Stein Lynde: vocals (5, 8, 10, 12)
Domenica Romagni: vocals (1, 4, 10)
Anica Mrose Rissi: fiddle, harmony vocals
Mark Harris: electric guitar, harmony vocals
Rich Hinman: pedal steel guitar
Mike Mulshine: synthesizer, harmony vocals
Mark Eichenberger: electronic drums, percussion
Featuring the Owen Lake Strings
Violin: Anica Mrose Rissi, Jeffrey Kuan, Dan Trueman, Cleek Schrey, Annika
Socolofsky
Viola: Henry Valoris
Cello: Domenica Romagni, Tomasz Rzeczycki
Conductors: Ruth Ochs, Mike Mulshine
And Special Guests
Annika Socolofsky: vocals (2)
Pascal Le Boeuf: Wurlitzer electric piano (8)
Susan Alcorn: pedal steel guitar (3, 5)
Caroline Shaw: fiddle (2)
Noah Fishman: mandolin (7), electric bass (2, 7, 9)
Quinn Collins: electronics and effects (2)
All arrangements by Owen Lake
Recorded by Jeff Snyder at the Princeton University Electronic Music Studios
Mixed by Matt Mehlan
Mastered by Sarah Register
Album design by Eric Li and Helen Lin
Thanks to Cenk Ergun, Henry Valoris, Leila Adu, Quinn Collins, Lainie Fefferman, Jascha Narveson, Pierre-Alexandre Tremblay, Anna Meadors, Kate Soper, Matt Hough, Dave Van Allen, Sam Pluta, David Franzson, Arugula Badidea, and Hank
Publication of this record is made possible in part by a grant from the Barr Ferree Foundation Publication Fund, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
supported by 5 fans who also own “The Best of Your Lies”
An extraordinary listening experience. The first two tracks are brutally dissonant and atonal in many places, but snatches of melody weave in an out of a roughly hewn synth fabric.
The second two drone and grind with an hypnotic hybrid of power and subtlety. I didn't want it to end.
Easy to dismiss music like this as wonky self-indulgence. But it isn't. This is real music that pushes beyond our expectations, to remind us what music can be. Michael Mueller
Nicolette Hoang's velvety vocals are the finishing touch on this pitch-perfect update on outlaw country with a touch of 60s glam. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 27, 2024
Former frontman of punk band Roidz has crafted a richly layered contemporary pop record exploring the world of lives lived on the fringe. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 7, 2023
The classic sound of country music comes to life on the new one from Florry: boot-stomping rhythms, swinging guitars, and weeping lap steel. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 20, 2023