Dan Mangan

NATURAL LIGHT was recorded unexpectedly over 6 magical days by four best buds in a cabin by a lake.

Here, there is a return to folk music’s classic underpinnings of political resistance. 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.

There is something fitting 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 artist 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. 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.

        

Dan Mangan is a two-time JUNO award winning & two-time Polaris Music Prize listed musician and songwriter. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with his wife and two sons. He has released 5 studio LPs on Arts & Crafts, and toured extensively in North America, Europe & Australia. Dan also scored the feature film Hector And The Search For Happiness starring Simon Pegg as well as television shows for Netflix and AMC. In 2017, he co-founded Side Door, a community marketplace platform for the arts that seeks to democratize and decentralize the entertainment industry by allowing any space to be a venue.

Dan’s new single In Your Corner (for Scott Hutchison), is a direct response to the indie-rock anthem The Woodpile from Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit, and is dedicated to the outfit’s late and dearly missed songwriter, Scott Hutchison. With the lines “Leave a light on when it’s bad / We will congregate and make a plan / We’ll be in your corner” Dan is replying to Hutchison’s question, “Will you come back to my corner? / Spent too long alone tonight”.

“We’d only met once but Scott’s passing eviscerated me. He was my age and very close with several dear friends of mine,” says Mangan, “Either he couldn't see how deeply he was loved by the world, or he didn’t feel worthy of it. How come he could bring joy to so many people but not to himself? I remember weeping as I poured cereal for my boys that morning. This song came very quickly in the days that followed.”