One of the tracks on Nelson musician Evan Amies-Galonski’s debut album Shadows Cast, “Winters on its Way,” is a nearly eight-minute instrumental piece inspired by the seasons of Haida Gwaii. Composed with bandmate Jay Myers, whom he met on the island, the song is a jammy, experimental exploration with a vaguely psychedelic vibe.
It’s also the first song they play at their live shows.
“We were coming back to Haida Gwaii and getting ready to hunker down for the winter, because it gets really dark and you need something to do. Making music is what we did,” Amies-Galonski told the Star, while on tour across the province. He’s scheduled to play at The Royal on Baker on Aug. 22.
“That was the only song we wrote together, because normally we both write our own songs. Then one day we had two guitars, we were just messing around and tuning, making stuff up.”
That’s when they were inspired to combine their efforts.
“Once we put all our parts together it ended up being like seven minutes long. We had to find a way to remember all the parts, so we started thinking of it as a seasonal song.”
Flourishes over the course of the song mimic aspects of the weather, and take listeners on a journey through the transforming landscape.
“We named each part of the song after a different weather event. One part would be called cool wind, or friendly storms, or leaves falling.”
Partway across the province on a release tour, the pair have worked their way from Prince Rupert through Terrace and down to Vancouver. Amies-Galonski said as a band they want to explore both darkness and light.
“Our name came from a song I wrote quite a while ago, and it had some elements of darkness and a heavierness. But there’s a lot of light as well, and that was a way for us to explore both sides of shadows being cast — because they also require light to be created.”
The new album has 11 tracks.
For more information visit Shadows Cast on Facebook. To listen to Shadows Cast’s debut album visit shadowscast.bandcamp.com.
