Following recent singles ‘Thank You’ and ‘Hot Ghee’, Night Beats are dropping their new single and video ‘Nightmare’. A slice of soulful psychedelic R&B, the track is the latest to be lifted from LA-based Danny Lee Blackwell’s sixth Night Beats album, ‘Rajan’, out July 14th via Fuzz Club and Suicide Squeeze. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/SNlQbA_aU18
On ‘Nightmare’, Blackwell writes: “I wanted to hear sounds and cries of unconditional, blind love. I wanted swirling, fitful guitars, speaking in tongues, thrashing around in a chest trying to break free. A call and response to the blood curdling voice of a lost soul, ringing out, pleading for understanding. ‘Rajan’ is laced with distant, layered choral groups, exploring pathways paved by Isley Brothers, David Ruffin, Grace Slick and other psychedelic soul pioneers of the time. I wanted to hear the sounds of service to the ones you love, even being blinded by it. This song creates a circle, if you’re listening. A cascading roadmap through a nightmare. Thunder and lightning, flashing neon blue lights, rhetorical puzzles.
As Night Beats, Danny Lee Blackwell creates music like one might assemble a puzzle. The Western psychedelic auteur builds his work from one moment, an initial spark, that must fit a certain criteria: it must give him goosebumps. If that sensation arrives, Blackwell will pursue the idea relentlessly until he has a new song; if not, he moves onto the next moment, constantly looking for the perfect molecule of a song.
On his new Night Beats album, ‘Rajan’, the songwriter is at his strongest, creating works that shine with captivating melodies and hypnotic rhythms, but are underscored by subtle choices of craftsmanship that can only be achieved after countless hours in the studio. Blackwell creates a work that lands somewhere between Spaghetti Western film score and psych-pop opus, a career-defining album that reveals much about Danny Lee Blackwell’s artistic philosophy while keeping that ever crucial air of mystery intact.
‘Rajan’ began just like every other Night Beats album. Shortly after releasing the fuzzed-out pop epic ‘Outlaw R&B’, Blackwell began itching to create new music. Writing isn’t a process that Blackwell has to sit down and engage with. As Night Beats, it’s something he’s always doing, and the only differentiation between periods of creation is what makes it on certain records and what falls victim to the cutting room.
“Whenever my writing gets to a point where songs begin to take shape, it begins to feel like a faucet,” Blackwell explains. “As soon as Outlaw R&B was finished, I began writing and very quickly fell in love with a few ideas that encapsulated the feeling of Rajan. I think writing is a constant cycle in that it never really begins or ends, but there are definitive points where the writing is leading somewhere.” On this new project, Blackwell felt very early on that this album would be dedicated to his mother. Though thematically it doesn’t always reflect this tribute, the whole project is infused by this familial tie.
“This isn’t a concept album, because every album has a concept. That term never made sense to me. But if it’s about one thing, it’s about this pursuit of freedom that was instilled in me by my mother,” Blackwell says. “In the arts, I’m very lucky in that I have 100% control over what I want to say, and how I do it,” he explains. That means some songs toy with Anatolian funk and Western-tinged R&B. Other songs, like “Nightmare” mess around with 70s Brazilian psychedelia. There are also elements of Chicano soul, rock steady love songs, Lee “Scratch” Perry-inspired dub; essentially, in the world of Night Beats, nothing is off limits. “Rajan is just one of six examples of me doing exactly what I want, and not caring about whether it’s checked out or not. I’m a journeyperson. I want to make things for the sake of making them.”
Night Beats’ new album Rajan is an ode to great music. Danny Lee Blackwell enters the canonical halls of music past and confidently inserts his voice into the conversation. It’s an album both indebted to its influences and wildly innovative in its originality. Above all, it finds Night Beats pursuing every whim imaginable. “I’m here to explore. I think exploration is the underlying reason in a way, of why we do the things we do,” Blackwell explains. “I feel lucky. What can I say? I feel blessed.”
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