The liner notes of Dave Scanlon’s forthcoming album Taste Like Labor reference the family photograph. An object “descriptive of a gathering” inherently rooted in a specific moment yet strangely distant from it too. As though in documenting things we perform a dual action. The preservation of a wider context in all its specificity and abstraction—relationships, bonds, the energy in a room—and the creation something entirely separate. A distinct object which conveys its own information. Reality becomes hyperreality. The memento exists beyond the history it was intended to preserve.
Out this April via Whatever’s Clever Records, Taste Like Labor functions in a similar manner. An album aiming to describe sentiments as they are lived and felt, but not beholden to the moment. As though at some degree of detail, a studied feeling comes to exist on its own terms, lifted free from the context in which it was experienced. Dave Scanlon mines such a phenomenon for all of its disembodied strangeness, be it to confront voyeuristic tendencies or the chemical realties underpinning the emotional world. But moreover, he does so to undo the preconceptions bound up in every signifier. To take the familiar and show it back to us different, and thus allow some deeper essence to drift in free from the the black matter baggage of words.
Today sees the release of the album’s second single, ‘Crystals’, which serves as the ideal introduction to Scanlon’s intentions. With a patient sound warmed through with fondness, the track digs into our worries and fears to reveal the hopes which underpin them. A mindful experience where everything is held at arm’s length, losing none of the intimacy but providing just enough distance to gain a sense of perspective. So when Scanlon sings “Crystals, fractions of prayer, and my emotions cresting,” it is the final word which is key. “The cresting provides the reassurance,” as he puts it, “that this too shall pass.”
The moment marks a change in the track, with piano from Shannon Fields (of Stars Like Fleas, Leverage Models and Helado Negro, and who also produced the record) further leavening the sound as it moves towards a humble epiphany. “When an abundance of prey crashes the Snowy Owl flies south,” Scanlon sings, “that’s beautiful / I love you for being beautiful.” Lines delivered with tender assurance, as though after a period of blinkered living, he is snapping to the majesty of things as though waking from a dream.
We have the pleasure of sharing a video for the track. Co-directed by Ro(b)//ert Lundberg and Dave Scanlon himself, with text and post-production from Benedict Kupstas, the film blurs the line between still life and stop motion, leaving you guessing whether it is the motion or lack thereof in the composition which proves the most striking.
Taste Like Labor is out on the 14th April via Whatever’s Clever and you can pre-order it now.
Photo by Robert Lundberg