Lightning Dust

Vancouver’s Lightning Dust is a sibling band to the heavier psych-rock outfit Black Mountain, comprised of two key players from that band working on a more ethereal, ghostly plane. Keyboardist Joshua Wells and vocalist Amber Webber (both also featured in Pink Mountaintops) take a completely different route on this side project debut, exploring a more sensual, folkier sound. It’s all mood here, tracks flowing like cheap red wine and tambourines flickering like candles at the end of their wick. The instrumentation is sparse, and most songs — save for the nearly giddy guilty pleasure that is “Wind Me Up” — have a somber tone, driven by Webber’s haunting, warm voice. “Take Me Back” is a creeper, Webber’s quivering vocals floating atop sustained organ notes and ominous, reverb-dipped guitar notes, feeling like a ‘60s relic dug up from a woozy, late-night session with Buffy Sainte-Marie, while the harrowing “Jump In” (featuring Wells’ vocals) carries the same weight as a Leonard Cohen song-poem of love to the end.

Amber Webber and Joshua Wells have been playing together for many years as part of Black Mountain. They've toured the world and have played impenetrable space-rock to the unlikeliest of audiences. With an abundance of creative energy to spare, the two decided to start a separate project together, that they named Lightning Dust. Committing themselves to a more simplistic approach with Lightning Dust, Webber and Wells also decided to escape the comforts of their familiar instruments and writing styles. On their self-titled debut, minimal and spacious arrangements and a moody, theatrical vocal-style aptly expose the demons, creating songs that creep into your bones with a haunting chill. The album was recorded in a dank cave and a bright blue house, perhaps an unconscious yet obsessive protest of the sunny beach and beer world that surrounded them on the outside. But despite this unattractive external world, and while completing the album in small fits of insanity, the two were compelled to retreat to the coastal summer air from time to time, when they could take no more of the shadowy frame that they had decided to enclose themselves in. Many of the songs on this self-titled debut began years ago as melodies which persistently floated around in Webber's head. And, conveniently, Wells was at a loss for words to accompany the piano songs that wouldn't leave him alone. Their creation Lightning Dust matched these lingering ghosts with each other, creating a special, lasting work that perfectly brings together the shadows with the sunshine.

Black Mountaineers Amber Webber and Joshua Wells seek better living through histrionics, not chemistry; fortunately, this self-titled Jagjaguwar debut is just as potent a blast from the past as their full-time band.