Through the lens of Daughn Gibson, Josh Martin doesn’t break the rules. He just never knew they existed.
The rogue outlier has spent the last two decades taking the scenic route. (And that’s not a reference to his well-documented almost-phantom vocation as a truck driver.) It’s one of the many aspects of Daughn Gibson’s murky world that many have dined out on. Hi music, an indulgence for the chin-stroking, inner-city elite and their incessant struggle in realising that someone from the working classes is actually capable of producing the best art.
Gibson fits that bill. Making the kind of gritty, haunting moodscapes that would scare even the most hardened criminal, Gibson’s 2012 debut, All Hell tapped into a seriously rare vein. His crate digging escapades, breathing life into ghosts, resulting in a hybrid form of doom country.
Seemingly with the world at his feet, Sub Pop came calling, and the Pennsylvania native’s follow-up, Me Moan, followed shortly after. While it naturally reached more ears, Me Moan failed to replicate the marrow-chilling aesthetic of All Hell.
So too Gibson’s third cut, the Randall Dunn-recorded Carnation, which saw him moving from haunted roadhouses to sunnier climes. It was far from the busted flush some thought it to be. In fact, time has proven it to be anything but. Gibson’s mangled ’80s AM-inspired synth-country, something you could listen to in the company of a piña colada.
The following years proved fallow, and short of last year’s single, Dying Fine… the Pain’s in Trying to Stay Here, in a music sense, Gibson has been in the wind. The singer, trading in the artistic slog for raising a family alongside his wife, Dum Dum Girls’ Kristin Kontrol.
With someone of Gibson’s creative ilk, however, there will always be a next thing. And like Carnation, his long-awaited follow-up, Lake Mary not mysterious, sees him continue to shine a torch into dusty corners. The result? A Florida record!
Unlike his first three albums, Lake Mary not mysterious comes on slow. Think of sitting at the bar on Saturday night sinking beer and waiting hours for it take effect. There’s an unspoken beauty in the comfort of strangers with several beers under the belt. Even despite such pastimes fading in this everything-now culture, listening to Lake Mary not mysterious has a certain nostalgia about it. A companion record in a different sense.
Daughn Gibson - Lake Mary not mysteriousSonically, Gibson has always pulled from obscure places, marrying up ideas that look incongruous on paper. It’s these square pegs in round holes that actually make the Daughn Gibson experience what it is. Thematically, Gibson’s well-read intonations evolve through his songs. A potent concoction of Hammett’s hard-boiled prose and Hiassen’s dry wit. (Led by the chilling darkness at the door on Wide Open Lines and the nimble twang and subtle strings of Saint Paul.)
It all starts with So Good, I Was – a lament for the lost highway. An acoustic-led number where there’s just enough whiskey and nicotine to balance out Gibson’s honeyed brogue, the chorus hits like the sun splitting the storm clouds. Gibson’s croonability, certified soul, instilling an emotional power that finds you dripping tears into your pint glass.
Cocoa Beach is less beer and more cocktail. Poolside. A broken ballad as two lost souls fuck away their loneliness greased by narcotics and booze. Elsewhere, and Sacred Life already feels like a lost hit. All ’80s swoon and sparkle, the story plays out like an Elmore Leonard short-story.
While the untethered Cocoa Beach underpins a certain kind of debauchery, Quang Nam goes the other way. A tender-hearted sound bath that takes you deep into Daughn’s world, it’s as direct as he’s ever been. (“I found love in Quang Nam / They’ll never take it from my hand… That’s where I met you”).
It’s not the only juxtaposition on Lake Mary not mysterious. The slow burning Last Night at Sugar’s Bar, the kind of chiming nightscape that illuminates dilapidated truck stops, while Dead in the Ballroom occupies the other side of the coin. The protagonist leaping from the page of a Jim Thompson yarn.
If Sacred Life is a lost single, then Cold Lie would be its worthy B-side; rambling blues broken up by guitar licks and frenetic work across the keys that roll into Bala Cynwood like a storm. The song, a mash-up of motorik beats and doomy stoner-rock that evokes a fever dream. In many ways, it underlines Lake Mary not mysterious’ unevenness, which is its greatest boon. And, by extension, what the Daughn Gibson story is all about.
Circling back to All Hell, and I’ve often wondered whether it would have landed differently had it it been released today. Alongside Marissa Nadler’s July, both releases may have been on a totally different trajectory in a current economy where even the hipsters are a slave to the twang. Make no mistake, though. Daughn Gibson was doing his thing long before his younger adversaries began wearing cowboy hats and pilfering lines from David Berman’s jaundiced notebooks.
Like the late Silver Jews leader, Daughn Gibson has never worked on regular time. And that doesn’t change on Lake Mary not mysterious. Something that will hit differently as the years roll on. Unlike growing tired of albums or artists, no matter how one’s brain chemistry shifts with age, in all its soul and renegade spirit, Gibson’s music will always hold firm and stay with you.
Lake Mary not mysterious is out now via El Ed Eb. Purchase from Bandcamp.
