Premiere: Skinny Dyck Shares New Single + Video “Less Stress”
Victory Pool Records is thrilled to announce “Easygoing“, the new full-length album from Skinny Dyck (that’s Lethbridge-based songwriter and stringsman Ryan Dyck, for those not in the know), following hot on the heels of 2022’s Palace Waiting, which “distilled the spirit of wide-cut country,” according to Exclaim! magazine. Easygoing sees Dyck moving a few steps further away from the country music environs he once wholly inhabited, but fear not, twang fans: rather than replacing that sound wholesale, he and his studio collaborators have instead created their own hybrid approaches. Or, as Dyck puts it, “I still like to collect my mail at the old shack off the highway, but I no longer want to live there exclusively.”
Dyck on the track, “Maybe the drone-like guitar and backing vocal are a fragment of my own religious experience – married lyrically with the incessant pacing around the house that Shaela does when on the phone. I find myself feeling less stressed when the journey starts, and anxious towards the end. What now? A new breath of life like the soft return and release of the door as a baby sleeps upstairs but the floor still creaks. A psychedelic guitar burnout at the end for posterity I guess.”
There is a pleasing straightforwardness to the music of Skinny Dyck. His voice is clean and clear (and usually nestled in a bed of lush reverb), the songs are held together with spacious instrumentation and smart, tasty hooks (including Dyck’s signature pedal steel work), and the band is right on the money, everything in its right place and not a note wasted.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, however: co-producer and bassist Aladean Kheroufi (a multi-faceted musician and songwriter in his own right) applied some of the old school, minimalist recording techniques he picked up while interning at Daptone Records years ago, and he has been at the core of Skinny’s live band (alongside drummer Clayton Smith) for the last handful of years. So when Dyck and Kheroufi hit the basement to lay down these songs, it was as easy as slipping into a pair of old jeans. And that sprightly, jazz-inflected lead guitar work comes courtesy of Winnipeg’s Austin Parachoniak, who helped bring a whiff of Merle Haggard’s ’80s band to the mix.
Easygoing had its finishing touches applied by the prime candidate for the role, celebrated mix engineer Mark Nevers, whose credit list is a veritable who’s who of fresh, forward thinking songwriters and bands that exist in the between-genre sphere. Artists such as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Silver Jews, Calexico, Andrew Bird, Bill Callahan, and Lambchop have benefited from Nevers’ touch, a blend of his trusted ears and vintage analog gear. As a mixer who began working in the traditional country & western scenes and slowly gravitated to the more expansive world of indie music, Nevers was a fitting choice for the job.
And this notion of “country but not” courses through Easygoing in a pretty tangible way, its success partially measured by how unnoticeable it is. Take “Nosedive” for example – what might be one of the album’s more traditional “boots kickin’ up dust” kind of song features a deeply psychedelic spoken word outro, with enigmatic vocals bubbling through a thick web of analog delay; it’s truly a unique blend of approaches – and it works.
Elsewhere, things continue to pair nicely, with conga drums undercutting sparkling lead guitar and the occasional synth flourish – while “Lean In” features a delicious bass line that sounds as if it was plucked straight from a vintage James Jamerson-played Motown track. The combination of the band’s cool chug and Dyck’s classic songwriting moves on title track “Easygoing” recall the endless-horizon feel of classic War on Drugs, another band who’ve managed to successfully infuse the familiar with a jolt of something new.
“I used to write songs but then shifted into being more of a side guy,” Dyck said. “Now I write songs again and I’m happy to focus on my own project.” Well, we’re happy about it as well, and Easygoing is available October 25 on Victory Pool Records, online and in stores.
FEATURE INTERVIEW:
What inspired the creation of “Less Stress”? Are there any personal experiences or stories behind the song?
I use the name “Moses” in quite a few songs. He’s my “area man.” It’s without the attention of attaching meaning to it outside of its obvious affiliation with the Christian Bible – maybe that makes it a little provocative, I dunno. And if it is, I’ll stand behind it in the name of some lite therapy to process my own religious upbringing. Sometimes I’m the area man, other times I’m just a guy in the basement trying to record vocals in-between phone calls and other noises that echo throughout the house. If I can be easygoing I’ll have less stress right?
As a musician you are often staying in people’s houses, getting it late – or hosting other artists doing the same. I find myself lying in bed awake, losing sleep and waiting to evaluate how well my instructions to “try and come in quiet” will be adhered to.
What kind of visual style or aesthetic did you aim for in the video? Are there any specific influences or inspirations?
I have amassed a pretty strange VHS collection, weird instructional videos and stuff. I wanted to make a kind of New Age meditation tape. I imagined finding a tape named ”Less Stress” with Skinny Dyck as its astral guide. Zen, to me, is best embodied by a disembodied head. -Nickelas “Smokey” Johnson
How does this project set the stage for your future work? Are there any new directions you’re excited to explore?
I feel very adjacent to some sort of country jazz thing. Freddy Powers and Bill Frisell, maybe. Adventurous steel guitar players like Curly Chalker and Speedy West, probably. If this record has a theme (it doesn’t) it’s a sliding off of the country music pay scale, which is well represented in Less Stress. I think the next time I visit country music I’ll do it in a completely stripped down fashion – down to the studs and see how much the bones can handle without flesh. But until that time I’m probably off doing something else.
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Nov 20th Mills Hardware – Hamilton, ON
Nov. 21st Baby G – Toront,o ON
Nov 22nd – Motel Chelsea, QC
Nov 23rd Sonic Hall – Guelph, ON
