Boy Golden Best of Our Possible Lives
The Canadian songwriter Liam Duncan releases his fourth album, Best of Our Possible Lives, on February 13 via Six Shooter Records, under his stage moniker Boy Golden.
The twelve songs were recorded and produced by Robbie Lackritz at Lucy’s Meat Market in Los Angeles, with an all-star lineup featuring Pino Palladino on bass—best known for his work on D’Angelo’s masterpiece Voodoo—alongside Abe Rounds, Gabe Noel, Joseph Shabason, FONTINE, and Austin Parachoniak. The character of Boy Golden, a kind of Gen Z cowboy, allows Duncan to borrow the codes of country music while exploring deeply personal themes such as suffering and resilience, self-questioning, and identity. As he explains: “The lines between him and I are soluble… Whether it is my spiritual beliefs, my way of living, my sexuality—it comes up in my writing, and I am then forced to reckon with it.”
Liam Duncan is equally comfortable in indie pop-folk and country rock with a seventies flavor. The opening track “Suffer” sets the tone: both introspective and incisive, the music is driven by rock’n’roll guitar riffs and bluesy slide guitar and serves as a framework to highlight his storytelling.
“The Matter at Hand” and “Bad Habits” are pure country-funk gems straight out of the swamps, while “Eyes” is a moving praise to a friend who died by suicide. “New Orleans” ventures into the universe of Guy Clark, while “Cowboy Dreams” and “Moontan” feature the singer Cat Clyde, with whom he will be on tour beginning in April.
In the fresh and airy “Like a Child,” which has been released as a single, Liam uses the river as a metaphor and presents softness and vulnerability as a way of moving forward. “This is how we flow around the rocks,” he explains.
The album ends with the beautiful title track “Best of Our Possible Lives,” inspired by philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s argument that, if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, then this must be the best of all possible worlds. Being present and living through each moment, accepting it as it is, is the only way to find peace.
For those who will be in the Big Apple on May 17, Boy Golden will play at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn. All tour dates can be found on his website. https://www.boygolden.ca/
and here: https://www.sixshooterrecords.com/artists/boy-golden
https://www.instagram.com/boygolden/