DARK TEA
BIO
Dark Tea, the solo project of LA-based Gary Canino, will release their new self-titled, full-length studio album on April 30, 2021, on Fire Talk Records. The 12-track collection expands the group’s sound from their previous LP (also called Dark Tea), further exploring Canino’s cinematic visions and twangy folk narratives.
Born and raised in Huntington, NY, Gary’s quiet Long Island youth gave him access to all of the pleasures and distractions of New York City. After college at the University of Virginia, Canino made his way to Brooklyn in 2011. He played bass with post-punk revivalists Rips, recording and touring their debut album with Austin Brown (Parquet Courts), forming Dark Tea in 2016. Fire Talk, a label known for left-field rockers like Pure X and Dehd, issued the first Dark Tea LP in 2019, mixed by Jarvis Taveniere of Woods and featuring memorable guitar work from Meg Duffy of Hand Habits.
The new Dark Tea album, recorded by Matt Barrick (The Walkmen) and NYC punk veteran Sasha Stroud, is a document of deeply personal, interior reflections, contrasted with the wide open spaces of an idyllic American soundscape. Beyond the music, Gary channels his Cassavetes obsession by making videos for Dark Tea, Current Joys, and The Berries. It’s a continuation of the Dark Tea vision: creativity, commitment, nurturing a sense of wonder through the haze of nostalgia, while looking toward the future.
MUSIC
Dark Tea, the solo project of LA-based Gary Canino, will release their new self-titled, full-length studio album on April 30, 2021, on Fire Talk Records. The 12-track collection expands the group’s sound from their previous LP (also called Dark Tea), further exploring Canino’s cinematic visions and twangy folk narratives.
Born and raised in Huntington, NY, Gary’s quiet Long Island youth gave him access to all of the pleasures and distractions of New York City. After college at the University of Virginia, Canino made his way to Brooklyn in 2011. He played bass with post-punk revivalists Rips, recording and touring their debut album with Austin Brown (Parquet Courts), forming Dark Tea in 2016. Fire Talk, a label known for left-field rockers like Pure X and Dehd, issued the first Dark Tea LP in 2019, mixed by Jarvis Taveniere of Woods and featuring memorable guitar work from Meg Duffy of Hand Habits.
The new Dark Tea album, recorded by Matt Barrick (The Walkmen) and NYC punk veteran Sasha Stroud, is a document of deeply personal, interior reflections, contrasted with the wide open spaces of an idyllic American soundscape. Beyond the music, Gary channels his Cassavetes obsession by making videos for Dark Tea, Current Joys, and The Berries. It’s a continuation of the Dark Tea vision: creativity, commitment, nurturing a sense of wonder through the haze of nostalgia, while looking toward the future.
1st Pressing
300 - Bright Red LP
200 - Black LP
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
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