New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) Two-time JUNO Award winner Dan Mangan + Blacksmith will release its new album 'Club Meds' on January 13 via Arts & Crafts (home to Broken Social Scene, Timber Timbre, Stars, and more). 'Club Meds' is Mangan's first album written entirely with Blacksmith, an ensemble of Vancouver's finest experimental musicians and long time collaborators (Gordon Grdina, Kenton Loewen, John Walsh, JP Carter,
Jesse Zubot & Tyson Naylor) and recorded with producer Colin Stewart (Ladyhawk,
Black Mountain), 'Club Meds' features 11 songs that weave grand thematic ideas about numbness and perception into sweeping hazy arrangements, anthemic melodies and haunting atmospherics. The lyrics are sharp-eyed and piercing with NPR's Bob Boilen saying, "Dan Mangan is a creative soul with something to say." 'Club Meds' is available for pre-order at noon ET on 10/21: GalleryAC.com
Lead single "
Vessel" is featured in the 2014
Simon Pegg film 'Hector And The Search For Happiness,' for which Mangan also co-composed the score with
Jesse Zubot (recent winner of Polaris
Music Prize with
Tanya Tagaq). Watch the video for "
Vessel" via Top40-Charts Music:
'Club Meds,' whose title plays off our collective modern quest for sedation and the ways we achieve it, is Mangan's most pointed album to date. "People are comfortable with a middle-ground safe place," he says. "We're afraid to be honest with ourselves and actually work through the highs and the lows and embrace them." Mangan's signature baritone emerges out of a haze of layers, leaping in an instant from a brooding growl to a booming shout, complementing the album's seismic range. Songs like "War Spoils" and "Forgetery" send chills up the spine, while "XVI" juxtaposes a portrait of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI against a depiction of a modern-day banker on Wall Street wearily observing the Occupy protests.
Mangan's last release 'Oh Fortune' (2011) earned him two JUNO Awards for New Artist of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year, along with his second Polaris
Music Prize listing. SPIN praised the album's "noisy atmospheric rumblings, raucous drums and free-flowing sax," All
Music hailed it "the most ornate thing he's ever done," and NPR
Music detailed his "intricately arranged recordings, fleshed out with as many as 20 musicians lending a hand."
Mangan has shared the stage with Vampire Weekend, Mumford & Sons, The
Decemberists and The
Walkmen and will tour North
America this fall as a three-piece backed by JP Carter on trumpet and Kenton Loewen on drums.
'Club Meds' tracklist:
1. Offred
2. Vessel
3. Mouthpiece
4. A Doll's House / Pavlovia
5. Kitsch
6. XVI
7. War Spoils
8. Forgetery
9. Club Meds
10. Pretty Good Joke
11. New Skies
Dan Mangan + Blacksmith Tour Dates:
10/25 - Philadelphia, PA - Underground Arts*
10/27 - Columbus, OH - The Basement*
10/28 - Chicago, IL - Lincoln Hall*
10/29 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line
Music Cafe*
10/21 - Denver, CO - Lost Lake Lounge*
11/1 - Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge*
11/3 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge*
11/5 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile
11/7 - San Francisco, CA - Great American
Music Hall*
11/8 - Los Angeles, CA - Bootleg HiFi*
11/9 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah*
11/13 - Austin, TX - The Parish*
11/14 - Dallas, TX - The Loft*
11/15 - Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone Cafe*
11/16 - Nashville, TN - 3rd & Lindsley*
11/17 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl*
11/19 - Washington, DC - Rock & Roll Hotel*
11/24 - Cambridge, MA - The Sinclair*
11/25 - Brooklyn, NY - Warsaw*
2/18 - Halifax, NS - Rebecca Cohen Theatre^
2/19 - Fredericton, NB - The Fredericton Playhouse^
2/20 - Quebec City, QC - Imperial#
2/21 - Montreal, QC -
Corona Theatre^
2/24 - Kingston, ON - Grand Theatre^
2/26 - London, ON - London
Music Hall^
2/27 - Ottawa, ON - Theatre at NAC^
2/28 - Toronto, ON - Massey Hall#
3/1 - Guelph, ON - River Run Centre^
3/5 - Winnipeg, MB - The Garrick^
3/6 - Saskatoon, SK - O'Brians Event Centre^
3/7 - Regina, SK - Darke Hall^
3/9 - Banff, AB - Eric Harvie Theatre^
3/10 - Calgary, AB - Jack Singer Concert Hall^
3/11 - Edmonton, AB - Francis Winspear Centre for Music^
3/13 - Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre^
3/14 - Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre^
* - w/ Bear's Den
^ - w/ Hayden and Astral Swans
# - w/ Hayden
