[Cover photo credit Shelby Mick]
Nashville-based trio The Arcadian Wild have announced their new album Welcome, to be released on July 21, 2023 via Vere Music. Along with the announcement they’ve shared the first single “Dopamine,” a track that confronts “the insidious ways that smartphones and social media have hijacked our brains.”
Mandolinist Lincoln Mick says:
‘Dopamine’ is about an endless cycle in which I am admittedly caught up. One of the voices of the song belongs to the proverbial ‘man behind the curtain’ of the technologies, tools, and platforms of this age – someone whose primary objective is to harness and commodify our two most valuable assets: our TIME and our ATTENTION. The other voices represent our collective voice, as we work to sift for the truth amidst all the alternative stories being broadcast to us at every moment of every day. I thought it would be fun to create a progressive, cacophonous verse that felt reflective of the overstimulation so many of us experience. Isaac and Bailey and I sing entirely separate lyrics and melodies over top of one another in certain moments to embody that story-counter-story premise.
Written and recorded in The Arcadian Wild’s hometown of Nashville, TN, Welcome marks the start of a new chapter for the trio consisting of guitarist Isaac Horn, mandolinist Lincoln Mick, and fiddler Bailey Warren. They had previously devoted the last few years to a series of singles and EPs.
Like much of the band’s catalog, the album blurs the lines between Chamber Folk and Progressive Bluegrass, but this time around the group sought to “embrace of candor and simplicity” even more than before.
Working with engineer Logan Matheny (Colony House, Hiss Golden Messenger) and mixer Shani Gandhi (Sarah Jarosz, Sierra Hull), the band approached the recording sessions for Welcome as live as possible, embracing the organic feel of their concerts with the help of double bassist Erik Coveney (Sierra Hull, Dave Barnes), who joined them on the studio floor.
When the pandemic forced the trio off the road in 2020, they shifted their focus to composing and recording a multi-movement song cycle that resulted in the 2021 EP Principum and helped earn the band performances everywhere from the Woody Guthrie Center to the Ryman Auditorium.
Tour Dates:
April 19 – Chattanooga, TN @ Barrelhouse Ballroom
April 29 – Nashville, TN @ Bright Shade Music Festival
May 11 – Greer, SC @ Albino Skunk Music Festival
May 30 – Knoxville, TN @ Open Chord
May 31 – Johnson City, TN @ The Down Home
June 1 – Charlottesville, VA @ The Southern Cafe and Music Hall
June 2 – Washington, DC @ The Hamilton
June 3 – Annapolis, MD @ Rams Head On Stage
June 4 – Philadelphia, PA @ City Winery Philadelphia
June 5 – New York, NY @ The Mercury Lounge
June 7 – Boston, MA @ City Winery Boston
June 8 – Syracuse, NY @ Funk n Waffles
June 9 – Buffalo, NY @ Sportsmens Tavern
June 10 – Millvale, PA @ The Funhouse at Mr. Smalls
June 11 – Columbus, OH @ Rumba Cafe
June 23 – Lexington, KY @ The Burl
June 24 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
June 25 – Mount Solon, VA @ Red Wing Roots Music Festival
June 30 – Crested Butte, CO @ Public House
July 1 – Manitou Springs, CO @ Lulu’s Downstairs
July 2 – Denver, CO @ Soiled Dove Underground
July 23 – Bardstown, KY @ Spalding Hall
July 26 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
July 27 – Sioux Falls, SD @ Levitt at Sioux Falls
July 29 – Evanston, IL @ SPACE
July 30 – Indianapolis, IN @ Hi-Fi
August 3 – Huntsville, AL @ The Common House
September 5 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
September 10 – Mill Valley, CA @ Sweetwater Music Hall
September 17 – Louisville, KY @ Bourbon & Beyond Festival
