You should know Duke Garwood. As it is, his soulful, stripped-bare sound has been under your nose this entire time. Until now, he’s been a ghost-like presence at gatherings of some the world’s biggest rock stars, and an unassuming continent-hopper trying to find his way in the world.
“When I was young and pretty, I could’ve become a star,” reveals Garwood. “Luckily, I didn’t have any inkling to. I didn’t know what I was doing; I wanted to play music the way I wanted it to be played. That probably saved my life”.
Truer to his muse than ever before, his new album Heavy Love (recorded in Josh Homme’s Pink Duck studio in Los Angeles with Alain Johannes (QOTSA) and Mark Lanegan at the helm) brilliantly explores this magical artist’s auteurist, cinematic vision - it’s dark, mystical and erotic sound returns Garwood’s music to the elements, to his mad blues, the unhurried grooves and desert slithers, and his spectral, past-midnight burr.
Garwood has formed deep connections with great musicians - from similarly quixotic souls Mark Lanegan, Seasick Steve and Josh T. Pearson – to distant legends Tinariwen and The Master Musicians Of Jajouka. Savages singer Jehnny Beth has also been a long-term admirer and it’s her delicate vocals that appear on Heavy Love’s haunting title-track, which you can hear now on the new video made by Garwood and famed rock photographer Steve Gullick.