Steven Lambke

The weather is changing. Rhythms and interactions that had seemed eternal degrade. The realm of the uncertain expands. Uncertainty inspires fear, fear inspires rage. Points of recognition are shifting, points of return becoming rare. The measure of human meaning and dignity has been reduced to discussions of financial gains and losses.

A song can seem a slight thing. Barely there. Unless it is in the midst of being sung or being heard it could be said to exist only in potential or in memory. What is the form of this potential? A balance of words, chords, melody. Balance implies an interaction. The song is the point of balance that is returned to, potential turned into action with intention. In this way the song is the music of ritual. Ritual is the creation of human meaning through repetition.

With Dark Blue, Steven Lambke builds a visceral swirl of narrative images, dense with allusions and invocations, rich with imagery and scene, into a series of creation stories, a document of disruption, a lament for environmental ruin and the destructions of colonialism, and a stubborn evidence of endurance and transcendence. It is a product of this time, a collaborative process between poet and muse, inspiration and scribe, guitar and voice and drum.

The release of Dark Blue marks the 10th anniversary of You’ve Changed Records, the label co-founded in 2009 by Steven Lambke and Daniel Romano. A collaboration yields its own energy. Evocative poetry and guitar work reminiscent of Lambke’s long career with indie legends The Constantines combine with Romano’s multi-instrumental skill and production talents in a music that is sophisticated and immediate, intimate and expansive.

But what act of creation could ever be called complete? The song reacts to the world into which it is sung, and acts on that world. The outcome is never known and the song is not sung the same way twice as everything surrounding it will have changed. The song moves through the world like a rendezvous of atoms.

Begin again. Calling equally to the past and to the future, the song has a double existence as an expression of memory and an expression of hope.

Memory is the daughter of heaven and earth, and the muse is a daughter of memory and everything. It is traditional for an artist to call on the muse at the beginning of an endeavour. This suggests that the great works of art begin, not in the presence of the muse, but in her absence. – Amanda Jernigan

If Steven Lambke were a bird he’d be a Zeppelin – Daniel Romano

So let us invoke the muses, and let us fly like a zeppelin. This is my new record, Days of Heaven; dear muses, let me speak true of it. It’s a tender, intimate thing, though in it’s tenderness and in it’s intimacy it required attention and courage. The songs were written over some years in the crumbling capitals of an old world: Venice, Detroit, Sackville, Toronto. Tamara Lindeman (The Weather Station) and Ian Kehoe (Marine Dreams) helped me develop them, adding layers, adding voices, being audience and sounding board, adding as I was paring them down to the essentials: a flower, a stone, a swallow. I was a man softly saying ‘love’ into the dread silence of a full moon. We recorded with my frequent collaborator Jeff McMurrich (Constantines, Jennifer Castle, John K Samson) and then we recorded more at home. Mika Posen played violin and Ross Miller played bass. Darcy Hancock (Ladyhawk), my friend, played guitar on “Dead Stones,” “You Know Me Well,” and “Moonshine Brother.” Richard Laviolette lent his brave voice to “Moonshine Brother;” it makes the song; may we all choose our families well. Shary Boyle, with unmeasurable generosity of spirit lent her beautiful sculpture La Lune to the album as grace and muse.

My love, be brave. Strong enough to love. Strong enough to be loved. To listen close to love and hear love.

Days Of Heaven, the first song on the album, was written on New Years Day in Sackville, NB. I was alone and the wind was strong. Tamara played the bowed guitars. If you listen closely at the end you can hear the drum machine bleeding through.

Thank you for listening. I hope you like it.

Days Of Heaven is available October 30, 2015 on LP/CD/Digital formats.
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