Listen: Dark Tea - "Rolling Back the Dial"

Gary Canino is no stranger to the various music scenes inhabiting New York City, Long Island and Virginia, as he has spent years working with artists such as D.B.B. Plays Cups, the Monte de Rosas Band and Andrea Schiavelli’s Eyes of Love before contributing bass to Brooklyn band Rips. On his own, he records under the name of Dark Tea and offers a compelling country-tinged pop aesthetic which pays homage to the acoustic traditions which have so obviously shaped his creative trajectory while also pushing these sounds into darker and more complicated areas.

Taking the experiences of those collaborative years and molding them to fit his own musical desires, Canino will finally release his self-titled debut as Dark Tea on March 22 via Fire Talk. The record was mixed by Jarvis Taveniere (Woods) and mastered by Mikey Young (Total Control). An album release show will be held at Union Pool in Brooklyn on March 22, with Dark Tea performing alongside bands Public Practice and Spirit Was.

On lead single, “Rolling Back the Dial,” he offers an intricate brew of acoustic familiarity, orchestral density and electric radiance (the latter courtesy of Meg Duffy of Hand Habits). This complex mixture of rhythmic impulses cements his position as a songwriter capable of evoking both the history of his own influences and the various future movements of those specific sounds. There’s a melodic ebb and flow built into the DNA of the song, an ever-shifting perspective on the capabilities of these particular musical resonances.