Brooklyn-London based indie duo The King Canutes present their new single ‘Seymour Stein (for Earle Holmes)’, the first offering from their debut album ‘Eastern Seaboard, Perfect Summer’, set for release on November 21st via New Jersey’s Magic Door Record Label. This is their first release since their 2008 debut EP ‘Last Callers and Losers’.
The King Canutes is made up of Keir Woods (vocals, electric and acoustic guitars), who brings a sonorous true folk voice of Northern England, while Richard Alwyn Fisher (vocals, backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitars) is the scrappy Replacements-style Midwesterner, having met in Brooklyn in the early 2000s in NYC’s cosmopolitan pop / indie rock scene and gathering collaborators en route.
Written by Keir after moving from NYC to Paris, ‘Seymour Stein (for Earle Holmes)’ captures the elation of freedom and release, mixed with the bittersweet frustration of starting the artistic journey again and the fear that maybe this is a far as it goes. Earle Holmes was a club owner and friend who gave Keir his first Paris bookings.
The King Canutes make intelligent, skewed pop with echoes of early 80s-90s Australian and Scottish pop, British folk and Midwestern indie rock, all melted in the current cosmopolitan cauldrons of New York and London. Combining the dynamic tension of dual singer-songwriters, their music sites somewhere between The Go-Betweens and the long-distance, long-haul commitment of The Postal Service,
Capturing and expanding on the unique visions of this songwriting duo, this album was produced, recorded, mixed and mastered by renowned producer Ray Ketchem (Guided by Voices, Luna, Elk City, Gramercy Arms, Crash Harmony) at Magic Door Recording Studio.
With a classic sound and a nod to Belle and Sebastian, elevated by stellar horns courtesy of the iconic Mac Gollehon (David Bowie, Al Jarreau, Duran Duran, Mick Jagger), this song also involves Ketchem on percussion and keyboards, bassist Dave Derby (Dambuilders, Gramercy Arms, Lloyd Cole), drummer Kevin March (Guided by Voices), and Jessie Kilguss on backing vocals.
“I’d say ‘Seymour Stein (for Earle Holmes)’ is an archetypal The King Canutes song. It’s so upbeat you almost walk right past the protagonists’ fear that they’re trapped in their codependency. Everyone always talks about what an upbeat song it is, but when I first played it at one of Earle’s shows he came right up to me and said “Man, you write the saddest fucking songs,” says Keir Woods.
Richard Alwyn Fisher adds, “Everyone sounds so good on this track, so smart and compact but still complex enough to be interesting”.
Some fifteen years in the gestation and three years in the making, their coming album is a testament to the artists’ tenacity, with a veritable who’s who of the indie scene lending their talents, including Kendall Meade (Sparklehorse, Mascott), Mike Dillon (Rickie Lee Jones), John Leon (Rocky Erickson), David Nagler (Nova Social, Joan Baez, Aaron Neville, Rosanne Cash), Doug McEachern (Suran Song in Stag), Renée LoBue (Elk City) and Verena Wiesendanger (Semi Gloss).
‘Seymour Stein (for Earle Holmes)’ is out everywhere, including Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp. The ‘Eastern Seaboard, Perfect Summer’ album, now available for pre-order, will be released on November 21st.
