Last month saw the return of Canadian duo Bedouin Soundclash, with “Salt Water” proving the group’s first new music in nearly a decade. Yet the horn-heavy single shared little in common with the ska-informed sounds of their decade-long run in the aughts—instead, the brass had more in common with New Orleans’ jazz scene, seemingly a brooding take on the Dixieland sounds of Preservation Hall Jazz Band.
This, of course, is because that is Pres Hall you hear on the horns, the collective contributing heavily to singer Jay Malinowski and bassist Eon Sinclair’s forthcoming LP Mass. With the second single, “Full Bloom,” dropping today, we get more of an idea of what this collaboration will entail, intensifying the relationship between the Jazz Band’s triumphant horns and Malinowski’s longing vocals and lyrics romanticizing the end of the world.
“I wrote this song at the beginning of spring, on that first day when everything has changed,” songwriter Malinowski explains. “I was thinking, ‘What if this was the last spring? What if after this there was just an endless summer and the earth heated up forever?’ Somehow that made a love story seem more vital—taking something life-affirming like a classic new-love-in-spring-time story set against the backdrop of end times. It made it more romantic and eternal in my mind; finding love at the end of the world. The horns in the middle instrumental break are supposed to conjure the growth of roots, plants, and flowers. The sax line rises and falls like a flower towards the sun.”
Mass is out October 4 on Easy Star/Mr. Bongo/Sony Canada. You can pre-order the album here.
