[Cover photo credit to Matthew Robbins]
Portland, Maine Shoegaze quartet Crystal Canyon recently released their single “Catatonia” and announced their third full-length album, Stars and Distant Light, for a November 3, 2023 release on Vinyl 12” LP and digital. The band has announced select November tour dates, with more in the works. Today, they have also revealed the single “Belt of Orion”.
Recorded at guitarist/engineer Todd Hutchisen’s Portland Acadia Recording Company studio, Stars and Distant Light represents “a painstakingly collaborative effort” on the part of Crystal Canyon’s members. The album features sounds that “could only be produced following the trial and error of dozens of guitars tracked meticulously onto analog tape.” The result was more keyboard and synth elements than on previous releases.
Hutchisen notes:
We started out demoing about sixteen or seventeen songs then finally narrowed down the songs to the nine that are on the record.
Formed in 2015 by vocalist Lynda Mandolyn (Inside Out/Loomer) and Hutchisen, Crystal Canyon launched with a mission to “call upon the spirit of the tradition of late 80s and 90s shoegaze without merely rehashing the formulaic gestures of the genre.”
The duo called upon bassist (and Hutchisen’s bandmate in another Portland-based post-rock/prog-rock outfit, The Baltic Sea) Jeremy Smith to join them. On Stars and Distant Light the trio are completed by the addition of multi-instrumentalist Nate Manning. Though primarily offering drums throughout the record, Manning also found himself adding guitars and other instrumental aspects to the sessions.
Mandolyn shares about their experience of making the new album:
We formed a band that sounded like the music we listened to. In the process, we’ve become a band we’d want others to hear.
Tour Dates:
11/04 – Detroit, MI @ Outer Limits
11/05 – Indianapolis, IN @ Healer
11/08 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Government Center
11/10 – New York, NY @ Berlin
