When music is based on a concept and that concept is the American wild west, it’s going to get my vote any day! This is the story behind Canyon Candy! Over ten years ago, back in 2011, cousins Tom Van Buskirk and George Langford were driving through the American Southwest. So inspired by the sights and signs they were seeing, an idea for a concept album was born! Soon places became song title and sounds and textures the backdrop for Canyon Candy!
Prior to this both cousins had been making music and sounds together for many years. As youngsters they started cranking out beats together in their family’s summer house in Cape Cod. Equipped with nothing more than a boombox, a microphone and a Gameboy, these early instruments were the foundation for their experimentations. Since then, the duo, having named themselves Javelin, have come a long way and have been releasing music on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label for over a decade! Their journey’s through the great American west proved to be so inspiring, leading not only to an album, but a film as well!…lucky things!!!
Listening to Candy Canyon now, I’m really excited! It’s a sonic trip into every cowboy and western film you have ever watched! It’s dusty, gravelly, lonesome, desolate and dreamy! Stars shine from yodelling vocals, guitar melodies bend and twist like the endless skies and scorched beats and rhythms echo out like hooves on solid, untamed ground. It’s definitely atmospheric.
Featured track, Cowpoke was an early re-visitation of the cowboy idea. Devised when the the record was already in mid-creation, it came about from after the duo had been intensely touring. Speaking of the track, they have described how, “that track came out of feeling just dead beat after touring (we toured about 80% of the time for a period of 6 months). Cowboy music was the perfect remedy to being completely spent on performing dance music….”
I love the simple, organic production of this track, the drums especially. It makes you feel like it was recorded in a room next door and I love how this element helps you to connect with it. It also feels close, but at the same time whisks you away to those endless, vast skies and canyons. It’s really quite captivating and I’m now off to listen to the rest of the album – which I’ve also pasted for you below! Enjoy!
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