Their finest work yet, Blue Cactus resuscitate a fleeting style of honest-to-goodness country music considered valueless to a “new” country music where songwriting is officiated by financial analysts and teams of marketing plutocrats instead of woebegone troubadours. Throughout Stranger Again, they explore loss and longing, self-love and reckoning with personal, political and human struggles. The otherworldliness of the music is a perfect contrast to their distinctly grounded, human storytelling lyrics. Stranger Again is a deep dive into Cosmic American music, with the band taking their sound into ambitious new planes, where country-rock meets light psychedelia as the soaring vocals meet twangy slide-guitars and propulsive bass-lines. The album has received enthusiastic attention from tastemakers including No Depression, American Songwriter, FLOOD Magazine, Talkhouse, and INDY Week among others. This as the follow-up to her full-length debut Oleander (a 2016 release, produced by Chris Stamey, that prompted The Bitter Southerner to praise her as “the Joni Mitchell the South never had”).Blue Cactus, the North Carolina duo of Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez, make Cosmic Americana: a blend of grit, glitz, groove, and twang that evokes a celestial soundscape of mid-century heartbreak.įollowing their critically acclaimed 2017 debut and a string of singles in 2020 their evolution is made plain on their sophomore LP, Stranger Again, released on Sleepy Cat Records. Gudasz now delivers a new album, Cinema, recorded between the famed April Base in Eau Claire, WI, with Brad Cook (Bon Iver, The National, The War on Drugs, Waxahatchee) and in secret studios across the lush forests of the rich NC music scene with Jeff Crawford (Daughter of Swords), Ari Picker (Dante High, Lost in the Trees) and Missy Thangs (the Love Language). In the past few years alone, the Durham, North Carolina-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist has shared stages with the likes of Ray Davies, Cat Power and Sharon Van Etten as part of the Big Star’s Third tribute concerts, opened for Television and toured from the US with Teenage Fanclub to Europe with the Mountain Goats, and appeared as a background vocalist on albums by Superchunk and Hiss Golden Messenger, making her TV debut with the latter on Late Night with Seth Meyers. With her luminous voice and captivating songcraft, Skylar Gudasz has won the admiration of some of the most distinguished artists in music. Inspired by the iconic vocal harmonies of the Everly Brothers and dynamic twang of great singers like Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline, Stewart and Arnez conjure a sound that will take you on a familiar journey into uncharted country, expanding tropes and breathing hope into the genre’s limitless possibilities. Based out of Chapel Hill, NC, Blue Cactus is led by long-time collaborators Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez who create songs that range from gritty honky-tonk to heartbreaking balladry.Ĭoming off the release of their 2017 self-titled debut album, Blue Cactus has given life to the future of “modern classic country”and received praise from music critics across the nation. Modern classic country duo Blue Cactus supplements their twang with soaring, space-rock-inspired guitars, while rich harmonies keep their tunes rooted on solid honky-tonk ground.
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