Irish/Canadian BD Harrington is a singer-songwriter, filmmaker and painter raised in Toronto. He studied painting at OCAD and creative writing at Concordia University, Montreal. He has lived in Mexico, Ireland, Italy, but now divides his time between London and Toronto. The Diver’s Curse is his third release, released on French label, microcultures which you can listen in full to below:
Album Stream: The Diver’s Curse
Originally recorded as a more stripped down solo affair, ‘The Diver’s Curse’ was destined for a fuller, more vital sound than his previous releases. With new musicians on board BD subsequently re-recorded the entire album to 1/2 tape, primarily off-the-floor, at the now demolished East London studio-space/underground party venue, The Speaker Palace.
Brimming with powerful melodies and finely-crafted lyrics that mix the abstract with the painfully direct, these songs confront the perils of exploration in both the physical and spiritual. The album is full of cracked cautionary tales of wandering too far, diving down too deep, coming up empty handed or ravaged and torn by what lies beneath the waves, the words, the skin, the promises. They examine the shifting tectonics of love, memory and time, the mysterious intersections where the present meets the past and the endless blood flow of regret and acceptance which courses through everything.
From the keening urgency of ‘Resusci-Anne’, the mournful grace of ‘Early Morning Eye’, the spiked gothic lament of ‘Black Waves’ and twin impulses of self-destruction and forgiveness grappled with on ‘One Match Left’, ‘The Diver’s Curse’ delivers an emotionally charged experience, both expansive and intimate, melancholy yet edifying, achieving a timeless quality with clear but distant echoes of his influences Lou Reed, Neil Young, Will Oldham, and Leonard Cohen
Joining BD is veteran electronic producer Kel McKeown (Kelpe) on drums, Adam Richens (Bethia Beadman) on guitar and Tom Goldsmith (Circulus, Part Chimp) on bass. Serving as a delicate counter-point to BD’s unique vocal delivery is the gorgeous voice of Suzanne Hancock (Barzin)
The album was produced by both Tom Goldsmith and BD Harrington, and mixed by Tom Goldsmith.
The Diver’s Curse is released on July 8th via Microcultures
Pre-Order via Bandcamp here: microcultures.bandcamp.com/album/the-divers-curse
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