Delicate Steve is your favorite musician’s favorite musician, a virtuoso guitarist, producer, and performer who occupies a lane entirely his own in the modern indie landscape. Today he has released the track ‘Playing in a Band’ from his upcoming album ‘After Hours’ alongside a new video for the song which features some of his friends and favorite musicians playing along to the song, including Kevin Morby, Waxahatchee, Nels Cline of Wilco, Cassandra Jenkins and more. Listen + watch the video below.
“This song is about looking back at what it was like to be young and free and in a band with your friends, traveling around and playing music without care, meeting people, seeing the world,” Steve said. “The song–the chords and music–just poured out of me without much effort in the studio, but the melody took a while and it was very hard to find what the song was trying to say. But I knew I had it when all of the notes were in the right places, and the song’s title came at that exact same time.”
Of the performances in the video he added: “I got my friends to be in the video because I knew they could all relate to this feeling, it’s one that spans all genres and music scenes and everything like that. For someone who has never experienced the feeling of playing in a band, maybe you will get a rush from seeing all of these musicians relate to this shared feeling. For all of the people who have had the experience, this one is also for you.”
Written and recorded on a 1966 Fender Stratocaster that reignited his love for the instrument, Delicate Steve’s captivating new album, ‘After Hours’, marks a first for Marion: an earnest, easygoing collection that revels in the simple joys of plugging in and playing.
In another first, Marion teamed up with outside musicians on the record, bringing in a group of all-star players including renowned bassist Shahzad Ismaily (Yoko Ono, Marc Ribot) and famed Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms For Peace) to help flesh out the arrangements and stretch his sonic boundaries. The result is Marion’s warmest, most magnetic work to date, an inviting, immediately accessible album that manages to balance thoughtful introspection and carefree bliss in equal measure.
“Recording with people who were at the peak of their instruments freed me up to play in ways I’d never really experienced,” Marion reflects. “They were bringing rhythms to the table that I hadn’t explored before, and the more they pushed me, the more I pushed myself.”
That chemistry is obvious from the outset on ‘After Hours’, which opens with the aforementioned ‘Playing in a Band.’ Lush and immersive, the track showcases Marion’s knack for sonic world building, conjuring up its own little universe of swelling tones and swirling colors underneath a lilting, lyrical melody line that feels as effortless as it is infectious.
Pre-Order ‘After Hours’
1. Playing in a Band
2. Street Breeze
3. I Can Fly Away
4. Now I Know
5. Looking Glass
6. Find My Way
7. After Hours
8. Artificial
9. Night Owl
10. Still Life
http://delicatesteve.com/
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