Our Heat Lightning EP is being released as a series of singles, starting with the title track, “Heat Lightning,” on May 3rd. It will culminate in a complete set of three songs on May 21st, following each single’s release on consecutive Fridays. This release is entirely digital, and follows the lead that we started with our Red Sky EP in January 2019.
We are based in Florence, AL and record entirely in the Shoals area with a rotating cast of friends. “We” is me, Adam Morrow, and my wife, Natalie Jensen. Jamie Sego (Portside Sound) engineered, mixed, mastered, and co-produced this. It features drums by Kevin Leigh Robinson. Otherwise, I played everything. We’re all in other bands and projects (I play with John Paul White and Speckled Bird, Jamie runs a studio based in the old Muscle Shoals Sound, etc.), and Della Ray has come to be the kind of domestic, friend based project we work on during the week and really pore over. The recordings speak for themselves-we’re not going out on tour anytime soon, and we’re going to keep putting things out like this at a steady clip. It is our art collective, taking cues from bands like The Clientele, Yo La Tengo, Lambchop, etc., while also absorbing the depth of our local Shoals history.
These songs may strike the listener as impressionistic, hazy dream pop with a bit of rock and folk. But we’ve put the vocals out front for a reason. “Unraveled” deals with love and death and memory (and memory being taken away), while “Be Here Now” is a direct reaction to living in Trump’s unhinged 24 hour news network America. We feel this is the most vital, honest thing we’ve made so far. It took some getting used to. Find our SoundCloud below, and look for the songs on all digital platforms. “Heat Lightning” May 3, “Unraveled” May 10, “Be Here Now” May 17.