Lonesome Shack – “Monsoon Lightning”
Americana Highways is hosting this premiere of Lonesome Shack’s song “Monsoon Lightning” from their new studio album Song of the Horse, which will be available on vinyl, CD and digital platforms on July 19th. Song of the Horse was recorded and mixed by Johnny Goss at Dandelion Gold in Tucson, Arizona and mastered by Timothy Stollenwerk of Stereophonic Mastering. The front cover painting “Goodbye Old Paint,” back cover art, LP labels and insert photos are by Ben Day Todd, with album layout and design by Kristian Garrard.
“Monsoon Lightning” is Ben Day Todd on vocals and guitar; Kristian Garrard on drums and percussion; Luke Bergman on bass; and Tom Walbank on harmonica.
The opening guitar notes sound unmistakably like a rainstorm, in an abstract suggestive way. The harmonica, woody and rich, cuts in to emphasize the wailing. This song never speeds, never thrashes, but the monsoon is covered in its potent restraint. The video is exceedingly riveting, with a distinctive visual perspective, which Ben describes here:
When I wrote ‘Monsoon Lightning’ I was saying goodbye to some old memories and trying to convey the supernatural mood of a monsoon storm. The lightning strike is like a spark that dissolves the mind and illuminates the new.
For the video I attached a headlamp to a piece of black matte board with a hole cut in it to produce the pinhole viewfinder and different lighting effects. Through the hole you can see the moon, the mountains, various plants around my workshop, recent paintings of my own including the album cover, prehistoric cave paintings and me singing along in a dirty old mirror. – Ben Todd
Click this link to pre-order: https://lonesomeshack.bandcamp.com/album/song-of-the-horse-2