Cabin Essence Blog

It isn’t long ago (six months to be precise) that the excellent Peter Lacey and Stephen Kalinich collaboration was released. However, the prolific Lacey has now released a new solo album, called Behind The Scenes -his seventh album in all. Once again, Lacey’s smooth textured and harmonic sounds are showcased. The publicity suggests this a concept album with a thread running through of an interplay between reality and illusion. There is certainly a constant Sgt. Pepper-like show atmosphere throughout the album that ties together the songs and the thin line that sometimes exists between reality and make-believe.

But ultimately an album is about the individual tracks -and there is some very strong tunesmithing in the poppy opener Funfair For The Common Man, the traditional folky sounds of Cast My Own Shadow and the languid instrumental Shadow Play.  My personal favorite is the effortlessly beautiful  Laughing Boy Here, a melody Brian Wilson would be proud of.

You can get a copy on the Pink Hedgehog website , where you can also get most of Lacey’s back catalogue.

The song has been available for a while but it has now been officially released for digital download, and as I mentioned last time, it gets the decade off to a great start. Yes, I’m talking about the Lucky Soul song, White Russian Doll, and it certainly taps into that source of brilliant pop music that makes you just want to get up and groove. It has just been awarded the BBC2 Single Of The Week on the Radcliffe and Maconie show so hopefully will pick up some legs from that.

The B-side is the slow and powerful Cryin’ In The Morning. There is a nice Brian Wilson connection here as it features the Stockholm Strings ‘n’ Horns who were featured on SMiLE and the That Lucky Old Sun premiere. You can download the new single here.  Can’t wait for their second album, A Coming Of Age, due soon.