Every day in his hometown Chicago, Steve Dawson took the bus and passed a florist. The shop stood out for its three signs, one in each front window. ‘Funeral,’ the first advertised. ‘Bonsai,’ read the second. ‘Wedding.’ The words stuck in Dawson’s mind. Ostensibly mismatched yet containing their own strange logic, something in the cadence of the words allowing them to fit together.
The perfect title then for a new project Dawson was working on. The singer-songwriter of country rock band Dolly Varden, his background is very much based in Americana and soul, so his decision to turn to the Chicago jazz scene for new music appeared to be a left turn. Yet the collaboration, which came to be known as Funeral Bonsai Wedding, had the same inexplicable sense as the words in the florist’s window—seemingly random elements cohering into a natural whole.
After a self-titled debut in 2014, Steve Dawson and Funeral Bonsai Wedding are back with a brand new record, Last Flight Out. Again joined by Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone), Charles Rumback (drums) and Jason Roebke (bass), as well as a cast of other musicians, Dawson flips conventions to hone his idiosyncratic vision. For if there is transcendence to be found in music, then it is not to be found in following the rules of rock music.
Adasiewicz converts the vibraphone into the lead instrument. Dawson’s vocals become chants and mantras. Roebke’s string arrangements lift the lyrics and breathe new significance into their flow. “Jason added to the meaning of the songs,” Dawson says. “I had been playing with him for many years, but it shows me he’s paying attention to the full songs—not just his part, but the whole picture.”
The idea of paying attention to full songs is key to Last Flight Out. Every element feels meticulously crafted yet ephemeral too, working in tandem as part of larger system that is itself has a fleeting quality. And this looseness lends a new freedom. “The songs go unexpected places,” Dawson says. “I let my imagination go where it will. I didn’t try to conform it to a traditional narrative.” The result is a sense that each song is no more or less than some wonderful happenstance, a gathering of small things that fit together perfectly, if only for a moment.
Last Flight Out is out now and you can get it from the Steve Dawson Bandcamp page.
Photo by Matthew Gilson