The New Loud, the debut full-length from Washington’s own Babes In Canyon, weaves moody folk with synth-laced pop into a sound that feels both timeless and entirely of the now. Luminous vocals float over glimmers of 1980s radio nostalgia, while flickers of mandolin dance like sparks in the dark. Richly textured and artfully arranged, what began as a foray into the fringes of Americana has blossomed into a fully realized, captivating artistic vision.
The project was born unexpectedly during a winter storm, when veteran singer-songwriter Nathan Hamer (a founding member of indie-pop outfit Kuinka) and his wife Sophia found themselves snowed in at a remote cabin. “We started playing music by firelight to calm our nerves,” recalls Nathan. “By the end of the night, we had our first Babes In Canyon song.”
Debut albums often exemplify a band and are its most definitive work and Babe Canyon certainly is on that path with musical nods to Cowboy Junkies, Neko Case and Cat Power.
The New Loud was written in an old 1950’s cabin on the Washington coast in the middle of the winter. Isolated and with minimal access to technology, the band spent their days walking on the rainy beach and through the coastal forests. They wrote and recorded all night long, with gale-force winds whistling through the walls, as inspiration struck. “We spent this time devoutly focused on going inward, using nature as inspiration to find a way to tell personal stories that people can connect with” says Sophia.
Glide is premiering the video for “Strange,” one that reverberates with a passionate dream pop sound mixed with rustic folk overtones.
“After a long chain of tumultuous events in my life, I’d started taking these long, meandering nature walks without my phone every day, trying to feel present again. The lyrics to Strange started forming as I processed the events of the past in real time, and the song literally propelled me to keep moving forward. I hope it can do the same for anyone who ever feels they’ve lost themselves for a portion of time,” says Sophia.
links:
https://www.facebook.com/babesincanyon
