Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by John Richards, host of the Morning Show on KEXP, is "Just a Candle (feat. Mark Lanegan)" by Wax Tailor, from the 2021 album The Shadow of Their Suns on Lab'Oratoire.
French producer Wax Tailor returned this year with his first new album in five years, The Shadow Of Their Suns, a star-studded affair featuring special guests like Del the Funky Homosapien, D Smoke, Gil Scott-Heron, Adeline, and, on today's Song of the Day, Mark Lanegan of The Screaming Trees. In a statement to Under the Radar, Tailor explains:
“I started working on the demo, early 2019 & immediately called it ‘Candle.’ I had this vision of a candle as an allegory of life. The candle that illuminates us, burns out, and one day turns off. I had scenes in mind and I wanted to play on the contrast between a dry and dark rhythm and incandescent arrangements to illustrate this path of life. I added the gimmick of the blown candle that illustrates the unknown. I then invited Mark who injected his print to the song.”
“The first time I heard Mark Lanegan I was still in high school, and his friend Kurt Cobain was still alive. 30 years later, it’s hard to get into an exhaustive list of his discography, between the Screaming Trees, his solo albums, his albums with Isobel Campbell, Queen Of The Stone Age, and many others. I’ve been hoping for a long time that one day I’d have a title for him. When I started the demo, I immediately thought it was the right one. I contacted him in the spring of 2019 to propose it and he answered me in the simplest way possible. We met during his last tour in France and we continued to work remotely. I am very proud of this title, this meeting, and what Mark brings to it. In a music industry where bending your back is often a conditioned reflex, Mark is a great humble man who goes through the decades without artifice, with talent and righteousness.”
