BLACK Coffee is the brand new album from country singer/songwriter Lachlan Bryan, who will be performing at the Armidale Club this Thursday 24 October from 7pm.
The album was recorded this year with his own ragged group of Melbournian alt-country misfits, The Wildes. It’s a genre-defying collection of songs, tracked live in the studio and fusing elements of old-school country, rockabilly, folk-balladry and gospel-tinged rockin-soul.
Since emerging in 2009 with The Wildes’ first LP Ballad of a Young Married Man, Bryan has earned a reputation as a serious songwriter with a unique gift for plunging the depths of despair and depravity, only to emerge with a heart full of hope and his tongue placed firmly in cheek.
Recently he’s shared stages with legends such as Steve Earle and John Hiatt, and appeared at major festivals from Byron Bay’s famous Bluesfest to Gympie’s infamous annual Music Muster.
In 2012, Lachlan released acclaimed solo album Shadow of the Gun, and embarked upon an epic 23 State tour across the USA. It was on this tour that he wrote most of what would become the new record, inspired by run-down hotels, roadside diners, desert landscapes and cheap, supermarket six-packs. The title track, for instance, was written at 9am on a napkin at a Mexican restaurant outside of Chicago.
The Wildes – aka Mat Duniam (drums), Shaun Ryan (bass) and Andy Wrigglesworth (guitar) – began playing together again last summer, and immediately embraced the new songs. On the album they are joined by Bill Chambers, Texan pedal-steel wizard Tommy Detamore, soul-diva Zoe Rinkel and banjo-extraordinaire Rod McCormack. Melody Pool, Bryan’s longtime ‘surrogate sister’, who sings backing vocals on seven of the tracks and duets on album-closer Forty Days and Nights.
Catch Lachlan Bryan and the Wildes at the Armidale Club this Thursday 24 October at 7pm.
