Lightning Dust on recording their “poppy” second album, touring and what it’s like being away from Black Mountain.
For the past few years, Canadians Amber Webber and Joshua Wells have best been known as two-fifths of psychadelic rockers Black Mountain. (The Vancouver group has opened for Coldplay, contributed to the ‘Spider Man 3‘ soundtrack and been nominated for a slew of awards, including a Juno.)
But these days, Webber and Wells are making waves as Lightning Dust, the duo’s side project that came together about two years ago.
| “Josh and I recorded a bunch of songs as Christmas presents for friends, just on his 8-track,” Webber says. “We gave one to [indie label] Jagjaguwar and they thought we should re-record it and put it out as an album [2007’s self-titled release]. After that came out, we decided to kick it up a notch and make an album with more instrumentation.” |
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Webber and Wells began working on songs in between tour stops with Black Mountain. After a year, the fruits of their labor bore Lightning Dust’s second album, the gorgeous Infinite Light. The record is a swirling mix of heart-aching melodies, lush instrumentation and Webber’s soulful, searing vocals. It’s a little bit rock in structure, a little bit country almost in tone and a little bit electro-pop in the usage of synths.
Each track, from wistful opener “Antonia June” to the epic “Never Seen,” has an undercurrent of heartbreak and anguish. It’s difficult to pinpoint where this can be attributed — whether it’s the haunting refrains or the soulfulness of Webber’s voice. It’s the record Fleetwood Mac might have put out if they were just writing and recording today.
“I liked the idea of making a bit more pop-y songs,” Webber says. “The first album was just so mellow and I thought it’d be really fun to make an album that would be easy to tour as a live thing. Josh was listening to a lot of The Poppy Family, a Canadian, ’70’s kind of folky-pop band. Myself, I really love music with space and atmosphere and mood that get you thinking about stuff.”
Webber and Wells each wrote five songs on the album (the eleventh being a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel‘s “Song Against Sex“). They would work on them alone, then share them with one another and collaborate to finish them, Webber often adding lyrics and Wells adding instrumentation to the other’s work in progress.
“It’s kind of a weird way to work together,” she says, “but that’s the fun of it — working on your own, you get to lock yourself in the room and you have someone interested in adding to them. It’s perfect for us. We’re so busy with the other projects. You just kind of need your alone time.”
Today, Webber is feeling the heat — literally — as Lightning Dust makes it’s way on a tour stop to Arizona. The band is coming from Austin, TX where they played a ‘wonderful’ outdoor show and went with friends to a swimming hole.
“It’s been nice,” she says. “This tour is four people. With Black Mountain, it’s such a machine, there are so many of us. You don’t have the freedom to do little things, like go swimming. ”
That’s not to say her and Wells’ Black Mountain days are behind them. The others, she says, have been nothing but ‘supportive and awesome’ about Lightning Dust — Webber even showed keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt many of the songs while they were in progress — and mentions that Lightning Dust is just one of several side projects carved out of Black Mountain (Wells and singer Matt Camirand are part of alt-country group Blood Meridian; Webber and the two contribute to Canadian shoegaze collective Pink Mountaintops — among just a few of what’s been come to be known as the Black Mountain Army.)
Black Mountain’s in the middle of writing a new album — which means a third Lightning Dust record may be a little while away.
“I think we both actually have songs written for the next album,” she says. “It’s not a matter of not having enough songs, it’s a matter of when we have time to record.”