Song of the Day: Duke Garwood - Heavy Love

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is “Heavy Love” by Duke Garwood from the 2015 album Heavy Love on Heavenly Recordings.

Duke Garwood - Heavy Love (MP3)

Weathered and rich, the traveling spirit of American blues music runs through the English artist Duke Garwood's songwriting and performances. A multi-instrumentalist who boasts skills on everything from guitar to clarinet, Garwood began his career as a musician for hire, playing on tracks by The Orb, Archie Bronson Outfit, and most recently, on Savages' Silence Yourself. In the mid-2000s, the Kent-born songwriter embarked on a refocused solo career, emerging with his 2005 debut Holy Week. Garwood's recordings gathered respect among fellow musicians – including Greg Dulli, Josh T. Pearson, and Mark Lanegan – which eventually culminated with him breaking through to a larger audience on Black Pudding, his 2013 full-length collaboration with a post-Isobel Campbell Lanegan. (A forthcoming sequel, tentatively titled Hot Lunch, is in progress.)

Garwood's latest, this month's Heavy Love, continues down the road he traveled with Lanegan, tapping into the desert journeyman spirit with the help of producer Alain Johannes (Queens of the Stone Age, Lanegan's Blues Funeral). The album's title track encapsulates the album's haunting tone, splitting the difference between the chilling wind of the desert and the thick air of the South English coast. Garwood's vocal performance is nearly whispered, but it carries a weight that could cut through a room. His instrumental accompaniment is equally as affecting as Garwood, regularly peaking in ghastly intensity around a central lyric – "Why did they not say it was only love?". It would be easy to mistake the dark richness of "Heavy Love" for gloomy heaviness, but Garwood's presence is like a lamp in his own unlit room, magnetic and curious in its singularity.

Duke Garwood will embark on a UK tour in April in support of Heavy Love. If he makes a trip across the Atlantic to play more shows, that news will be on his Facebook and Twitter. Below, watch the video for "Heavy Love".