photo by Michael Hallahan
DAVID CARESS is an enigmatic new venture from Dallas Seger, founder of Maine-based alternative metal trio Manic Abraxas and owner/luthier of Seger Guitars, created to investigate vast new realms of sound.
Much like the first pinpoints of sunlight refracted through innumerable dewdrops of a tranquil meadow in the early hours of a still morning, DAVID CARESS’ Azure is imbued with both beauty old as time and fleeting fragility. Sure, the sweeping elemental majesty, ferocity, and even isolation of the enigmatic art-pop architect’s native state of Maine gushes throughout the album, but the feelings brought forth by these twelve songs could just as easily have been born in the stagnant summer heat radiating off cracked concrete in any post-industrial urban sprawl.
Such is the duality of CARESS, who in the title track croons, “How can eyes so cold hold such warmth? How can clear blue sky promise storm?” over punchy drums, glassy guitars, and lush soundscapes. Tracks like “Sunshower,” “I Confess,” and “Break The Same” continue to construct new wings in the hallowed halls of late-‘70s/early-‘80s post-punk, new wave, and electronic worship, while “Echoes” and “Wildflower” bring tinges of English roots rock and psychedelia to the affair. Lyrics simultaneously cryptic and coy run the gamut between noirish night tales, sun-soaked vistas, and plaintive investigations on things not always being as they appear on the surface. That is not to say that the album flourishes by simply reminiscing about the past; for every gaze backwards, there’s an over-the-shoulder glance towards a future rich in pathways for guitar-focused electronic music.
Simply put, Azure would be a fitting soundtrack to the multitude of life’s moments both mundane and magic – sitting still and staring into the middle-distance of an unfeeling room under the spell of exhaustion; rolling over hills on twilight drives and having the orange-roseglow of a sunset gradient engulf your field of vision; the sighing exhalation of smoke and stress escaping one’s shadow under a lone street lamp; lying awake in the witching hour yearning for people and possibilities long gone – these can all be found shining in the diamond fields of Azure if you catch the light just right. This is mood music for a reality where the ups-and-downs continue to increase in frequency and ferocity; a the-past-is-the-future, the-future-is-the-past landscape undeniably treaded-upon and touched by DAVID CARESS.
Azure was fully written, performed, and recorded by Dallas Seger with additional strings by Tom Bennett (Today Is The Day) and additional arrangements by Justin Hamm (Dying Mind), and was mixed and mastered at Austin Enterprise by Steve Austin (Today Is The Day).
The title-track of mysterious Maine artist DAVID CARESS’ Azure happens to be record’s opener, immediately setting the table for twelve tracks of brilliant, brooding, eclectic electronic music. When he laments, “A Midnight whisper of a love so true / You’re caught in a web I wove for you,” over a flutter of hard hi-hats, the duality of his simultaneous sensitivity and cynicism is already apparent. “Azure” is a one-two punch carefully crafted to touch both the hopeful/hopeless romantic and the manipulator/manipulated.
Azure will be independently released digitally on October 9th.
Stream DAVID CARESS’ “Azure” at Bandcamp where preorders for the record are live RIGHT HERE and YouTube HERE.
Additional previews of the record will be issued over the weeks ahead.
Azure Track Listing:
1. Azure
2. Sunshower
3. I Confess
4. Angels Lies
5. Summer’s Grip
6. Cinnamon
7. Gloaming
8. Echoes In The Light
9. Wildflowers
10. Holy Ground
11. Break The Same
12. Shatter
https://www.instagram.com/david_caress_music
https://davidcaress.bandcamp.com
https://www.youtube.com/@DavidCaress