Lamplight

by Lamplight

Overview

The seeds of Lamplight were planted in Brooklyn, when Virginia native Ian Hatcher-Williams, then inactive as a musician, was getting burned out by big-city life and a tech job that left time for little else. At one point, he met Kevin Copeland of indie group Lightning Bug, who encouraged him to get back to music. Hatcher-Williams and his wife, a childhood friend also from Virginia, ultimately decided to move back home, and it took about a year to make it happen. The reflective eponymous debut of his solo alias, Lamplight, was inspired by the hopes, anxieties, and personal growth surrounding this time in his life. Copeland produced and engineered the album at Science Is Magic Studios in Vermont. An intimate and warmly intricate set of songs, it opens with the brittle vocals, light guitar twang, brushed shuffle rhythm, and subtly swelling atmosphere of "Play," an apprehensive song about transition ("Heard it's peaceful there/But do you have the patience?"). The album soon takes a more psychedelic turn on the feedback-injected, vaguely Beatlesque "Stillness," whose ruminations jump from backyard birds to microplastics. Not all rooted in anxiety, the album also includes the hazier, drunken "Call Your Mom," which reminds us to reach out to loved ones (and includes an unexpected trombone solo), and driving highlight "Empathy" opens with the line "No one really lives in isolation." Like several of the songs here, the latter has a shape to it established not only by structure (repetition) but by dynamics and density. There are some affectionate tributes here, as well, including a title track about Hatcher-Williams' 20-year acquaintance with his spouse ("Holding hands at 11/You can't know where it's going") and the fiddle- and piano-bolstered "Honey," whose welcoming acceptance adopts the voice of his father. A fittingly nuanced, organic, and intimate set given its inspirations, Lamplight delivers on both craft and substance. ~ Marcy Donelson

Product Details

Release Date:	03/08/2024
Label:	WESTERN VINYL
UPC:	0843563168219

Tracks

1. Play
2. Confrontation
3. Stillness
4. Lamplight
5. Call Your Mom
6. House Rules
7. Soft Blue
8. Empathy
9. Honey

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Lamplight   Primary Artist
Kevin Cabano   Piano,Guitar
Adam Baber   Drums,Percussion
Gabriel Wheaton   Violin
Logan Miley   Synthesizer
Corin Dubie   Horn,Vocoder
John Collins McLaughlin   Violin
Joshua H. Chang   Cello,Piano

Technical Credits

Joshua H. Chang   Photography
Kevin Cabano   Programming
Kevin Copeland   Engineer,Producer
Amar Lal   Mastering
Braulio Amado   Design,Artwork
Logan Miley   Mixing,Programming
Ian Hatcher-Williams   Composer