Before a single note of Dan Mangan’s 7th LP Natural Light was recorded, he listened through a series of song demos and sincerely considered the title Schminger Schmongwriter. After years of rolling his eyes at the genre, there is poetry in accepting that the two best words to describe him may in fact be “singer” and “songwriter”.
In context, the nod to Harry Nilsson’s landmark album Nilsson Schmilsson is not out of place. There’s a feeling of timelessness to Natural Light, in the curiosity, the wit and the playfulness. The analog patina and subtle reminders that this tender, funny and devastating work was made by humans together in a room. Mangan’s newest offering arrives with the poise of a modern classic, seeded by Dan’s singular lyricism and forged unexpectedly by four best buds over six days in a cabin in the woods.
“I don’t know what it is
Why the pain of living frees you
But there’s something about the juxtaposition
Something about the riddle”
Here, there is a sense of returning. A return to folk music’s classic underpinnings of political resistance. A return to making records close to home with dearest conspirators. A return to writing “song songs” that might be played around a campfire. Mangan has experimented rigorously with his sound over the years, but resting in his roots may be where he operates most effortlessly.
“Life is like a wrecking ball
That swings but doesn’t hit the wall”
There is poetry also in Mangan hitting this high watermark at this stage of his life and career. You can trace the chapters of his story in the fabric of Natural Light. You’ll find remnants of the tenacious young upstart who booked tours of Europe via Myspace in the mid 2000s. The emergent songwriter who hibernated into fatherhood just as arena-folk exploded in the early 2010s. The genre-bender who has subtly challenged his audience with each album, tracing a unique trajectory of confronting and eclipsing his own art. Over two decades, Mangan has managed an enviably strong creative ethic, and his integrity as both a singer and songwriter has only strengthened with age.
“And so I like the night
If you’re next to me
Please don’t ever die
I need proximity”
The big picture cohesiveness of Natural Light harkens to a pre-streaming, album-focused sensibility. Songs bleed together through focused transitions and overlapping interludes. Mangan’s lyrics act as gondolier for the journey, reassuring the listener that it’s cool to care. Dan sings for his kids, for his wife, and for a society in existential crisis. Love songs about a planet on the brink of collapse. Campfire songs for a world on fire.
“Meanwhile they focus on division
The meanest trick the devil pulled
The sheep believe the road to freedom
Was provided by the wolf”
Following several studio-centric albums with esteemed producer Drew Brown (Radiohead, Beck), Dan secluded himself deep in the woods of southern Ontario for a week with long-time bandmates Jason Haberman, Mike O’Brien and Don Kerr. They had intended to workshop existing songs, maybe write some new ones, and generally impose zero pressure to accomplish much at all. They pooled recording gear and turned Haberman’s rustic cottage (coined SOUVENIR) into a makeshift studio.
“And you can’t own connection
And you can’t own the time
And you can’t own the world’s sadness
Even when it feels like
Deep down you kinda need it
‘Cause at least it’s something real”
“This entire album feels like one big happy accident. A gift from the ether,” says Mangan from his home in Vancouver. “Even if it was never to be released, I can’t fully articulate how grateful I am to have had such a cosmic and charged creative experience with these three people I love so dearly. We were completely locked in. I get choked up just thinking about it.”
The evening they arrived, Dan introduced the band to a song he’d written for his sons - a meandering stream of consciousness lamenting how their modern adolescences might pose challenges from which he cannot spare them. Lightning struck and in three quick takes, the framework for the song was complete, and the table had been set. It Might Be Raining was the first song recorded, is the first song on Natural Light, and was the catalyst for six days of jubilant creative frenzy. Between lake jumps and egg scrambles, the crew brought to life 13 songs, many of which had been stewing in Dan’s head for years.
Mad
You’ve got a right to be mad
What kind of world have you been handed?
Under siege from all sides
I can’t stand it
Though these songs were written over the last half-decade, the timing of Natural Light feels urgent. The power and the beauty of this music, as well as its sadness, are imbued with the present political and social zeitgeist. If there exists a need for creative voices to cut through the world’s deafening static with eloquence and honesty, this work is an undeniable candidate.
Dan’s voice and songs have the power to unite and silence a concert hall. A centrepiece of his lyrical prowess is Soapbox, a Guthrie-esq rip into “the lie” of modern society. Though he considers it his preachiest song, Mangan’s determined stanzas unfold like a close friend helping to untangle the complexities of our collective struggle. “I hate that, so often, the thing that is most infuriating about society is also the hardest to explain,” he says.
And they always talk of Jesus
Without a hint of irony
But they see kindness as a weakness
And they disregard the meek
The band’s contributions are paramount to Natural Light’s charm and vitality, effortlessly elevating Mangan’s offerings without ever getting in the way. The recordings capture the foursome’s brotherly intuitions, as each note feels responsive, spontaneous, and serendipitous. Jason, Mike and Don buoyantly propel Dan’s melancholic lyrics with assurance and whimsy - a glorious juxtaposition perhaps best demonstrated by Natural Light’s first single Melody. Clarinets and slide guitars dance like drunken fools to his elegy about unrequited love.
“Contentment is a slippery fish, and the harder we squeeze it, the quicker it’s gone,” Mangan says of Melody. “The need for affirmation from something over which you have no control. The grief of having something special and then losing it. It’s about love, or society, or the music industry, or a brief moment above par on the existential rollercoaster of life.”
Melody chose me
And then Melody changed her mind
I should be over it now
But I ain’t over it now
All four musicians are credited as producers on the album. While O’Brien did the heavy lifting on lead guitar and Kerr on drums, the whole cast shuffled between instruments frequently as the recordings took shape. Minimal time was given to working out “parts”, and they allowed first impulses to direct the process, tracking the songs together “live off the floor”. Back in their respective cities and studios, the foursome continued to hone the recordings over the following months, adding subtle overdubs such as horns, strings and woodwinds.
What cannot be understated here is the creative input from bassist Jason Haberman, who engineered the recordings and even took the photos adorning the LP’s front and back covers. Jason also mixed the album from his Toronto studio. Though several other renowned engineers were initially considered, every step of the process had been intimately tied to the quartet's experience at the cabin, and it felt important to keep the project in the family, so to speak.
“I don’t presume to know what is in store
Or just how many wolves are at the door
But I have seen your body bending with the morning light ascending
And I will die defending our diminishing returns”
Natural Light is a natural resolution for Mangan as a scene-survivor. No longer the hopeful young upstart or the creative recluse, Dan has emerged as a politically-conscious family man with the maturity and wherewithal to articulate our troubled times with tenderness, intelligence and humour. There is luck involved too - this perfect storm of creativity was not so much conjured as ridden like a wave by four friends with a century of collective experience making records.
Mangan has often described songwriting as a way to articulate his anxieties and unburden his mind. This particular collection of recordings explores the darkness of our time, but embraces the listener like a weighted blanket. Sewn into the fabric, in a secret language, are the words instructions for survival. Dan reminds us that the pain of living frees us. That there are those who leave a light on in case another needs to see. That the feeling will go on. That we should seek the natural light, and when we find it, bask in it like a cat.
”But I’m still waking up in Denver
Still waking up in Inverness
I am reminded to remember
There is still beauty in the mess”
–
Dan Mangan is a 2x JUNO Award-winning and 3x Polaris Music Prize-nominated musician and songwriter. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with his wife and two sons. For decades, Dan has brought signature wit, sonic innovation and lyrical insight to the indie/folk community, garnering him a fiercely dedicated and deeply involved audience. He has played Glastonbury & Jimmy Kimmel Live, sold out Massey Hall and scored acclaimed soundtracks for television and feature film. In 2017, he co-founded Side Door, a community marketplace platform for the arts that seeks to democratize and decentralize the entertainment industry by connecting artists with alternative venue spaces.
