Introducing "Claws of Light," featuring Jason Loewenstein! - Out now on Own Records, VIDEO below by Jean Francois Le Crenier
Weird, warm, and enigmatic, the Dust Dive returns from another long field trip with Claws of Light, the captivating follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut, Asleep or Awake Walk. “Like modern Huck Finn tales where the Dionysian clashes with the suburban” (in the words of D. Shawn Bosler of The Village Voice), the Brooklyn-based trio’s new covey of songs soars with gritty equanimity and uncommonly vivid verse, evoking an urban-pastoral world that is mutually arcadian and trashy, dreamy and deadpan, magical and everyday. Claws of Light also maps a wild and curiously deranged sonic landscape, spanning from punk to classical, pre-war American folk to psych, gypsy violin to naturalist field recordings, and classic rock to outsider Americana. When asked to describe their sound, Dust Dive organist Ken Switzer, who spent much of his youth in the backwoods of rural western Massachusetts, offers up the label “experimental campfire music.”
Dust Dive multi-instrumentalist Laura Ortman (an accomplished film-soundtrack composer, session violinist and member of the White Mountain Apache tribe) describes Claws as “party songs without the party music.” The method of recording this album surely fueled the party. In an effort to preserve their relaxed homegrown ambience, the Dust Dive asked Sebadoh and Fiery Furnaces member and veteran guerilla engineer Jason Loewenstein to record the songs at the band’s namesake fort*—a cozy half-railroad apartment located on Flatbush Avenue. (Chief vocalist/lyricist and Kansas native Bryan Zimmerman calls Brooklyn’s strange and colorful thoroughfare “our river.”) Throughout last autumn and winter, Loewenstein dove in and spent weekends recording Claws within a labyrinth of acoustic forts rigged from scrapwood and blankets. Air-drumming during playbacks eventually compelled him to pick up his sticks and crown the record with drums on the leadoff “Babyface in a Pickup Truck,” as well as “Rope Swing 2000” and “Green River.”
*As an added bonus, Claws of Light also features one track immaculately recorded and mixed by Patrick McCarthy (Latitude/Longitude, Enochane) at the cozy Seaside Lounge, which also ultimately served as the mix-to-tape clubhouse for Claws.
Some good words about The Dust Dive:
"To call The Dust Dive a 'band' would be doing them a disservice. The profound depth of imagery in their lyrics and soundscapes is highly evolved and uncompromising. The sonic picture that is painted for the listener is the opportunity to be transported to another place entirely, and is nothing less than high art. Their music fulfills the deepest promise and intention of a musician to their audience.
They also party harder than Motley Crue." JASON LOEWENSTEIN, Sebadoh, Fiery Furnaces, "Claws of Light" recording and mixing engineer, drummer, and acoustic blanket-fort architect [from an interview with Native American Indigenous Cinema and Arts magazine (NAICA)]
"The world's most stoic band, and one of my favorites." CASEY BLOCK (East Village Radio, Eat Records, Hell's Hills)
“… it’s probably artists like The Dust Dive that are the true soul of American folk music . . . purest lo-fi Americana . . . like Sparklehorse on a very cloudy day . . . Congratulations to Own Records for releasing such a treasure chest of melancholic gems.” - Disagreement.net (Luxembourg) [for "Claws of Light"]
" . Now we are onto something special. 'Claws Of Light' is a time warp, a transporational vehicle . . . The Dust Dive spins Americana on its rustic ear." - KEN MICALLEF, Better Living Through MP3, author of "Classic Rock Drummers" [for "Claws of Light]
The Dust Dive's Bryan Zimmerman was born and raised in Olathe, Kansas, and along with chief instrumentalist Laura Ortman and co-vocalist/organist Ken Switzer, has made (murmuring below the more exaggerated/idealized works of new-folk indie-heroes like Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Devendra Banhart) one of the year's most fragile and personal indie-folk records: a warm, evocative and poetically exhaustive emotional catalog of people-places-and-stings, rooted deeply in a geography that adulthood, and perhaps the subtlest shift in ideology, has irretrievably distanced." STYLUS MAGAZINE (William S. Fields) [for "Asleep or Awake Walk"]
“Indeed, if the mere mention of "The Straight Story," the infamous David Lynch movie, causes a warm nostalgia, 'Claws Of Light' may well be one of the most enjoyable albums of this year.” - GONCALO SITIMA, Hiddentrack.net (Portugal)
[Google translation, for "Claws of Light"]
“It has nothing to do with anyone and everything to do with everyone.” - PATRICK MCCARTHY, Latitude/Longitude, Enochane, "Claws of Light" assistant mixing engineer and head engineer on the song 'Postcards of Real Worlds'
". a deftly manipulated Americana, complete with mythological twang." THE VILLAGE VOICE (Alexander Provan) [for "Asleep or Awake Walk"]
DISCOGRAPHY:
THE DUST DIVE "Claws of Light" (2007, Own Records)
THE DUST DIVE FLASH "Tens of Thousands" (Laura Ortman solo, 2006, free103point9 audio dispatch)
THE DUST DIVE "Asleep or Awake Walk" (2005, Own Records; 2004, free103point9 audio dispatch 22)
"RADIO ACTION II" compilation (features an early version of "Postcards of Real Worlds" (2004, free103point9 audio dispatch 20)
The Dust Dive, Brooklyn-based band at Recyclart, Brussels, Belgium, 2008 from Jean-François Lecrenier on Vimeo.
