DIAMONDTOWN come springing outta the fertile underground scene of Nova Scotia, where the scene has something of an Elephant 6 thing goin’ on, members freely interchanging and shifting between the various bands and strands of musical discourse under examination up there.
The band began as a duo, with members KC Spidle and Evan Cardwell, together previously going by the name Husband & Knife; towards the end of that particular inversion of the two they curved from DIY lo-fi into folkier territory, Evan picking up a 12-string. That crisp chime led them into a shift of gears; their current name, Diamondtown, came to KC in a dream.
For their live debut they picked up no less a show than a support slot for The Sadies, the sound was fleshed out by a drum machine; but Diamondtown as a whole progressing sonic thing needed more, and so the band picked up, one by one, Eric’s Trip’s Chris Thompson; keyboard player and percussionist Kate O’Neill, from Chris’s longstanding Moon Socket project; and Century Egg’s Meg Yoshida, whose most recent single we took a look at just a couple of weeks ago.
Their self-titled debut album is out now, and dives deep into an Anglophile dream and chime, with shoegaze and proper early-80s goth, psych pop and more informing a rather lovely sound; as you can hear on “Dream All Day”, the video for which you’ll find just down there.
“We’ve always had this cool drum machine as part of our sound, but I was probably the most vocal about wanting to break away from it,” laughs Evan. “In some ways, it was tying us down.
“This record is the most rocking thing we’ve done up until this point. I think adding Meg to the fold was the crucial element to make it sound like a band.”
With final production for a set written over previous months taking place during lockdown, KC has cause to revisit the lyrics he’d written and saw some eerie prophecy therein: “After I wrote the lyrics it started to feel like I was describing what’s happening now, but that was all done before,” he says.
“It’s about finding hope through impending doom, being scared of what’s going on outside, and trying to hide. Of course there are other things in there as well. I just like creating dreamy lyrics so people can interpret them as they will.”
“Dream All Day” is taken from Diamondtown’s self-titled album, which is available now digitally and on strictly limited (200 only) blue splatter vinyl over at Bandcamp.
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