Steve Lambke has a definite style. His quiet punctuated thoughts tend to dissolve half-whispered into pop jangles, but paired with Roddy Carlyle on bass and Daniel Romano on guitar and “White Horses” finds the same balance that Leonard Cohen finds on “Master Song.” If you can substitute an ape with angel glands for six white horses then you’ve got this new track from Lambke’s album, Dark Blue.
It’s not a huge leap for the indie folk artist to make as a storyteller; lyrically, Cohen casts a long shadow. More surprising is the connection Lambke finds in Marcel Camus’ Brazilian film Black Orpheus, joining jazz master Vince Guaraldi in the list of artists who have crafted albums from the same inspiration.
“White Horses” was begun as a song of winter, of the coming of winter. It was begun to tell a story of beginnings, of a meeting of lovers.
We met in costume and the costumes fell away. The costume is an image drawn from the world, which is to say that the costume has a history independent of the wearer. Once shed, it runs again across the world from which it came. Once bare, the lovers meet, unadorned, in the present.
The scene shifts to the city. The towers projecting upward. I am on a narrow street beside a hospital. Two nurses lean against a wall. They are smoking cigarettes. The ambulance arrives. A man steps out, costumed in gold for carnival.
Orpheus is a man with a powerful song. His song could charm the beasts and the birds and divert the rivers and dig up the things below. He is an exploiter of nature, a miner, an abuser of animals. His is a song of conquest. His only limit is his doubt. Or a pride that thought himself better than the bargain that he made. We have a responsibility to refute such men.
Stories and myths and costumes are drawn from nature, ever cyclical, previously experienced as eternal. That nature is now changing due to the violence of our actions. The seasons that are coming will be new. There will be new stories, new myths, new songs. There will be one thousand storms. We will be forced to abide by the bargains that we made.”
Lambke will be taking his new album, Dark Blue, on the road with a series of Eastern Canadian tour dates. He’ll also be taking his You’ve Changed Records labelmate Ian Daniel Kehoe along with him through the Ontario leg of the journey.
Tour Dates:
04.11.19 – St. Catherines, ON @ Niagara Arts Centre *
04.12.19 – Toronto, ON @ The Burdock *
04.14.19 – Guelph, ON @ Kazoo Fest (matinee)
04.14.19 – Hamilton, ON @ Into The Abyss *
04.27.19 – Montreal, QC @ Rocket Science Room
05.10.19 – Halifax, NS @ Radstorm
05.26.19 – Mount Stewart, PE @ The Trailside
06.07.19 – Sackville, NB @ Thunder & Lightning
* = w. Ian Daniel Kehoe