Two-time Juno Award-winning musician Dan Mangan just released a new album about the importance of fighting through sedation to achieve awareness.
He’s also a new father.
Coincidence? Maybe not, said the Vancouverite, who sees parallels between his recent life experience and his album, Club Meds.
“When you’re with a newborn child, nothing else in the world matters. You have to be so present holding a week-old baby,” said Mangan.
At the same time, “your little, precious being” saps you of energy and robs you of sleep, he admitted. “It’s exhausting!”
Various metaphors can be slapped onto Club Meds, the sometimes brooding, experimental album that Mangan recorded with his band Blacksmith. He and the group perform on Wednesday, Nov. 25, at Red Deer’s Memorial Centre.
While Mangan aimed for a “universality” in his lyrics, the song, Mouthpiece, contains the line “Question period is over. Don’t you feel it? I do. It’s a puppet show…”
He admitted feeling disenchanted with Canada’s former Tory government.
“When your democratic process has something called a Question Period,” shouldn’t it be incumbent of politicians to not make a mockery of it and actually answer some of the questions being asked, he said.
And isn’t it a form of sedation when members of the public buy into ideas that have been “dictated from the top down,” without the benefit of science or scrutiny, he added.
But Mangan points out that Club Meds isn’t about politics, but different aspects of human nature. Even the CD’s title can refer to the tranquilizing effect of the holiday resort experience.
When you think about it, he added, it’s interesting that people like travelling to different countries without having to deal with unfamiliarity. The all-inclusive resort is “like a whole beach full of people with their heads in the sand — they’re surrounded by people who look like them, and the only locals they meet are giving them drinks…”
Mangan stresses he makes these points observationally, not critically, because he understands the need for escapism — to turn the channel when another horrendous ISIS story comes on the news.
But continuously living in Lalaland is not healthy, he said. “You have to pull you head out of the sand every now and again” — which is what Club Meds is about.
The singer feels his previous folk style has evolved to something that “sounds completely unique, like we’re adding our own voice to this pile of music… I can’t think of another band that sounds like this record.” Music murkiness often mirrors its sedation theme on the CD.
“It’s funny. On first listen, it sound… dark and chaotic. But I think it’s a grower… After a handful of listens I think people will feel the joy that’s also in it,” said Mangan, whose album has been getting some four-star ratings.
The musician, who studied sociology and English at the University of British Columbia, had been reading Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid’s Tale — and feels ideas from both books about dystopian societies spilled over into his songwriting.
Mangan and his wife were also fascinated by Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, by Will Storr. It examines various belief systems around the world and explores why humans are more loyal to their personal beliefs than to facts.
The idea of mental sedation once again comes into play, said Mangan, who questions whether there’s a physiological need for us to “tell stories to ourselves” make sense of life and reinforce our role as protagonists of our own existence.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com