Holing up in a remote Welsh cottage with nothing more than a looper and a dictaphone, songwriters in Chief for Post Louis Stephanie Dawn and Cajun Dance Party’s Robbie Stern set about writing a new collection of songs, and returned unscathed save for some of the most experimental and lyrically darker songs they’ve ever written.
The first glimpse of this comes in the shape of a new track, Little Jack, about which Stephanie says “Little Jack is a character study of someone who lives mainly in their own head. It’s about the pains of loneliness and low confidence, and what happens when these mix with naïve sexual desire. I wanted to hint at the potential for harm or even domination. Little Jack isn’t a monster, but the song is in part about how monsters – or wolves – are made. We need to rethink how we make, force and mould some children into being ‘men’.”
The track itself is this cauldron of ideas, with staples such as melodies, angular guitars and swirling synths are added to by ambitious and colourful orchestration – choral harmonies and a trumpet solo no less, and splattered with tinny percussion and vocal effects to make something that turns your head and makes it nod at the same time. Quite some feat.
In addition the band have announced two London shows at Stour Space (6 March) and Paper Dress Vintage (27 April).
