There is an air of mystery surrounding the artist we know as Night Beats. The project of multi-hyphenate Danny Lee Blackwell has transformed over the years to fit whichever emotion or situation Blackwell is experiencing at this time, his discography is a heartfelt pursuit tinged with self-analyzation that birthed over a decade of mesmerizing tunes. We have seen the artist transform his dusty garage rock into glimmering psychedelia so potent it sounds like the guitar took a hit of acid. This Friday ( July 14), we receive the latest page in Blackwell’s cosmic coloring book. Rajan is arriving like a firework and reshaping everything we thought we knew about Night Beats. The 11 tracks presented to us today find Blackwell inching ever so closely to perfecting his psychedelic rock/twangy country fusion through a set of arrangements that play like shooting stars and vocals that cut through these expansive arrangements with the precision of a surgeon.
Rajan picks up right where Blackwell’s 2021 LP left off, with the artist finding nuanced and measured means to mend the worlds of mind-altering rock with tropes of country. If his 2021 LP was Night Beats planting the seeds, Rajan is the spring shower that pushes these ideas through the soil into full bloom. The songs Blackwell crafted for his latest release essentially wipe the slate clean for the artist, not to push his other creative works to the side, but it’s the consistent onslaught of free-roaming melodies that build a loose yet statuesque structure that makes Rajan feel like the entryway to a new era of Night Beats. He sounds more confident and mature than ever, the slow-burning nature of the album shows the artist has an immense amount of trust in even his most outlandish ideas. This confidence birthed a collection of songs that border on whimsical if it wasn’t for the dusty country guitars and troubadour-style songwriting anchoring it down to earth.
The arrangements on Rajan act as a hall of mirrors. You get lost in the combination of genres with challenging structures that evoke the carefree nature of a child at a carnival while projecting the same amount of whimsy and color as a Ferris wheel in the night. The album kicks off with a run of that aforementioned psychedelia, the soaring guitars of “Hot Ghee” make the whole song feel airborne while the vocals are free-falling right beside you through a kaleidoscope of heaven-sent harmonies. The downtrodden tempos of “Blue” humanize this alien-like music while beginning to hint a little more at the album’s country influence, although that marriage doesn’t come into vision until later on in the LP. After a quick pit stop at the funk-influenced and infectious “Nightmare”, things get a little more twangy and sentimental with the ballad-like track “Motion Picture”. This change in structure allowed Blackwell’s mystical falsetto to take center stage whereas the other more psychedelic-influenced tracks have his vocals hidden behind the instruments. This balancing act is not easy on paper and was executed like the true veteran Blackwell is, allowing his ideas to fully flourish without sacrificing his sense of self.
For his latest release, Night Beats asked us to slow down with him and appreciate the nuanced beauty of the world around us. Every chord change transforms these songs and every melody evokes the feeling of the warm sun after a day in the frigid air conditioning of an office, head-banging is appropriate but frolicking is also on the table. The frantic nature of these songs is subdued by their structure, allowing even the most lofty concepts to sound familiar while still taking you on a journey through Blackwell’s influences and how he filters them through his own vision. Rajan is a 45-minute hallucinogenic that scoffs at complacency while creating its own comfort zone, building its own universe to toy with in order to achieve the otherworldly textures that drive the LP. Enter into Rajan with zero expectations and allow Night Beats to whisk you off on a mind-expanding journey that blends genres while keeping the unfiltered creativity of Danny Lee Blackwell at the center of it all.
One Response
Hot Ghee, Blue, Nightmare, Anxious Mind, Thank You, Dusty Jungle, & Morocco Blues were all impeccable. Osaka was interesting but it seemed forced. Motion Picture and 9 to 5 messed up the vibe. Not sure about Cautionary Tale.