After years side-manning for Long Island, Virginia and New York City’s finest undiscovered songwriters (D.B.B. Plays Cups, the Monte de Rosas Band, Andrea Schiavelli’s Eyes of Love) and contributing crisp basswork to the indomitable Brooklyn band Rips, the songwriter Gary Canino, submits to you a generous collection of country-inflected music under the Dark Tea moniker that, as the quotes from other Garys illustrate, honors the past while looking ahead. There is, as they say, a little something for everyone. 

With Dark Tea, Gary emerges years later as a scientist does from her lab, having cracked the formula. The formula? Honor the listeners’ desire for both danger and comfort. And so, when a melody starts to wander from the marked trail, Gary soothes the listener’s ear with a simple one-four (“Variable Reward”). And so, when ambling verse figure disorients the listener, it repeats until she feels at home in it (“The Bird’s Nest”). And so, a long verse finds punctuation in a tastefully punchy chorus (“No Notifications”). The album also contains no fewer than three truly great guitar solos, including one from Meg Duffy’s Hand Habits on “Rollin’ Back The Dial”.

In closing, I offer three exemplary lyrics from the record to demonstrate that Gary has surveyed the mountain of good taste, climbed it, and now sinks the Dark Tea flag into its peak.

-forward by Andrew Cedermark

Mixed by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods), mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control).

1st Pressing
300 Black VInyl