LAITH "Lightning" (Fluff & Gravy)
Add Date: 6/6/2023
Release Date: 6/2/2023
FCC: #2
Focus Tracks: 79, Ghost, Texas Wind, LA
Formats: Non-Commercial AAA, AMA, Folk, NACC Top 200
RIYL: Bonnie Prince Billy, Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris, Bill Callahan
Laith is a Texas songbird. And songbirds don’t fly south for the winter, but they do fly low for the blues. Laith knows that to fly low is to feel high and to feel high is to get struck by lightning. And lightning is the heart of this record. Texas lightning.
On the recording of "Ghost" Laith says "The lyrics were written in traffic. Traffic feels really arbitrary and yet a necessary beat in the American city. This song came together pretty easily with the band, which I guess is a good sign. It makes me remember that things can be really close at their inception, but always have the chance to fluctuate between near and far. Something that makes so much sense now can be unfathomable the next day, so on & so forth…”
On Laith’s forthcoming debut record, ‘Lightning’ (6/2/23), he carries us across state lines from LA to Arizona, Colorado to Espanola, Houston to New Orleans, Utah on to the Great Northwest, where he currently lays his head, dreaming of running these roads until the wheels don’t touch the ground. And his writing does just that. It burns along the asphalt until there’s none left. And that’s when Laith takes us beyond, on phantom track lines through the abstract geography of his mind. He flows seamlessly between railway signs and lost trains of thought. Like a true American surrealist.
The result is a 12-track traveling companion for the wild-eyed western mystic drifting along the winding highway, pulling off for all the old haunts - love, money, and hysteria. It’s outsider country rooted in the Texas songwriting tradition; buzzing with the subtle hum of northwestern psychedelia. And with a voice that literally sounds like smokestacks and lightning, Laith takes the listener from bar room to bedroom and back again, cruising along the vibrant soundscapes of The Texas Birds. It’s a timeless sound laden with thundering pianos and padded with Rhodes and organ; dusty acoustic guitars and ghostly harmonies fade in and out of the ether; the spirited twang of the electric guitar and the raw wah thump of the clavinet squabble in the dark while the pedal steel takes to the sky; all held within the deep pocket of a dynamic rhythm section.
Laith, known by some as Hutch, hails from the suburban hurricane of Houston, Texas. Laith’s music is soaked with memories of Grandma and Grandpa’s bayou house, rides on a red vintage lawn mower packed with cousins, and smoky, music filled bars that a 16 year old has no place being. Which is exactly where Laith found himself as a youngling. Pulled between playing music on Sundays at church (where he learned to play guitar and sing) and performing in grimy dives, creates a tension in his songwriting that sits somewhere between the altar and the barstool. Ain’t no religion here anymore, just songs. Worth noting: “A song is a room, no matter how happy or sad”. – John H. Laith now resides in the Pacific Northwest lugging used up notebooks and loose scraps of paper scratched with the lyrics of new songs, not yet learned. You can always look forward to hearing something new and something honest when you’re listening to Laith.