[Cover photo credit to Jamie Boyda]
Portland’s Dana Buoy and Everloving Records have announced the release of Experiments in Plant-Based Music: Vol. I, the band’s latest offering since 2018’s Ice Glitter Gold. The album comes from Dana Janssen, longtime Akron/Family drummer who has been releasing as Dana Buoy for a decade. The music was inspired by the flora of Mort Garson’s Plantasia, and conceived in the basement beneath. To celebrate the release, Dana Buoy is sharing the official video for “African Violet.
On the song Dana Buoy says:
I was inspired by the resilience of our African Violet that’s been living with us for about 7 or 8 years now. Its seems to survive, and even thrive, in all of the conditions we’ve offered so far. Happy companions.
These songs take a new directions for Janssen not only because of their botanical genesis but because this is the first time his tracks have used actual drums, which also led him to recruit outside collaborators. A longtime acquaintance who became a close friend, Kelly Pratt (Beirut, Father John Misty, and The War on Drugs), arranged and played the horns. Justin Miller, meanwhile, handled the bass. John McEntire, of Tortoise offered a crucial assist in mixing it.
Experiments in Plant-Based Music: Vol. I arrives at a difficult time for Janssen since Miles Seaton, his counterpart in Akron/Family, recently died in a car crash. Seaton actually sings on one of the album’s track here, while Akron/Family’s Seth Olinsky takes a guitar solo.
