Dawn Landes – Fireproof

I’m returning to Dawn Landes and this album, mainly because I don’t feel that I gave them enough space last time (it was a gig review really), and also because since then she was a guest on John Kennedy’s Xfm show where she played a couple of tracks from Fireproof (along with a backing band including Josh Ritter), and I recorded them for your listening pleasure.

For anyone who’s unaware of Dawn Landes (as I was until quite recently), she’s from Louisville, Kentucky via New York and her day job is as recording engineer, who’s worked with people like Joseph Arthur and Ryan Adams. More recently she’s been based in Paris, from where she’s toured across Europe. However, as she revealed in the radio interview, she’s now given up her Paris apartment to return to NYC, because she’s got herself a studio in Brooklyn which she’s really looking forward to getting stuck into.

Landes has previously released an album called Dawn’s Music (on Ocean Music) and an EP called 2,3,4 (on Boy Scout Recordings). All of these are decent and worth your time, but it’s on Fireproof that she’s hit a particularly mean streak of form. It’s an excellent album, not a bad track – not even a mediocre one. She’s got some fine musicians on board and they all contribute to making Fireproof a special record – from the downbeat country of Twilight, through the melancholic pop of Tired of This Life and the cheery beats and fuzzed-up guitar of Picture Show, to the aching beauty of Dig Me a Hole. It’s all good stuff. So much so that I hope she’s going to spare some time in that new recording studio to record more of herself.

Download: Dawn Landes – Twilight (live on Xfm)
Download: Dawn Landes – Bodyguard (live on Xfm)

Dawn is back in the UK to support Josh Ritter in March.

Buy Fireproof from Rough Trade. Buy previous Dawn Landes releases from emusic.