King Cardiac released their much anticipated debut record Bloodlines on June 10th. The album culminates a BIG year that saw the band put out 3 singles and showcase at Folk Alliance International, Global Toronto and the Farms for Change Festival.
The genre bending ensemble features singer-songwriter and guitarist Gabriel DeSantis uniting with members of The Heavyweights Brass band with hard grooves and brooding vibes.
For Bloodlines, the band settled into “The Rooster Studio” run by Don Kerr (Bahamas, Ron Sexsmith) who engineered and co-produced the record along with DeSantis. It was mastered by Grammy nominee and Juno and Polaris Prize winner, Philip Shaw Bova (Feist, Lido Pimienta, Andy Shauf).
The 9 tracks offer cinematic vignettes of DeSantis’ time living overseas on a narrowboat on the London canals and his adventures throughout Europe. Tones vary between songs; from noir meanderings through the back alleys of Camden on “Stale Melodies” to the fervent and relentless horn lines that punctuate a psychedelic voyage on “Amsterdam” to the surprisingly vulnerable and sincere meditations on ancestry, inheritance and the human experience on the title track “Bloodlines.”
The music video for “You Got It Bad”, directed and produced by DeSantis provides viewers with a stunning black and white journey through London, following a dancing mania contagion as it makes its way through the city. The cinematic imagery compliments guest musician Anh Phung’s stellar flute lines. The whole video was filmed in motion with dancers Patricia Langa, Anna Preidel, Alex Felton and Anna Tierney.
