Paris-based guitarist/songwriter Stéphane Schück has demonstrated an impressive knack for corralling a wide assortment of college-rock luminaries for his increasingly collaborative Salt Collective project. The esteemed guests on 2023’s Life include Matthew Sweet, Juliana Hatfield, Nada Surf’s Matthew Caws, Television’s Richard Lloyd, Wilco’s Pat Sansone, members of the dB’s and more. Taking some shine off that accomplishment, however, was the fact that it was recorded remotely, with many artists beaming in contributions from multiple continents.
For A Brief History Of Blindness (Propeller Sound), the Salt Collective’s Transatlantic revolving door remains operational, but a core studio band provides more continuity. Much of the music was tracked by Schück and Mitch Easter (guitar), Wes Lachot (keyboard), the Connells’ Rob Ladd (drums) and the dB’s’ Gene Holder (bass) at Easter’s Fidelitorium Recording in Kernersville, N.C., in sessions produced by Chris Stamey. This time around, Caws is back, joining Aimee Mann, Andy Partridge (XTC), Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, Grays), Kimberley Rew (Soft Boys, Katrina & The Waves) and Mike Mills (R.E.M., Baseball Project), among others.
Mills is featured on “The Shadow Of The Moon,” along with Easter’s Let’s Active bandmate Lynn Blakey, who wrote the tune during the solar eclipse this past April.
“I spent the afternoon driving around singing nonsense words loudly to this awesome Salt track,” says Blakey. “I stopped to visit a friend’s mother in the hospital, who was at the end of her very beautiful life. My friend and I took a break to go outside to look at the eclipse shadows on the ground, and the lyric, ‘I’m just bending time with you in the shadow of the moon,’ came to me—as a love song to life, walking with each other in the shadows and stepping into the light, all lovely, ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.”
“It’s always a joy to hear Lynn sing,” says Mills. “And getting to sing with her on a song as good as this one was a real pleasure.”
We’re proud to premiere the Salt Collective’s “The Shadow Of The Moon.” A Brief History Of Blindness is out November 21.
—Hobart Rowland
