Nowhere Near The Looking Glass By Blackout Orchestra
Today’s Song of The Day is Nowhere Near The Looking Glass by Blackout Orchestra. Blackout Orchestra is the solo project of Benjamin VanBuskirk and based out of Toronto. Nowhere Near The Looking Glass is already the project’s second release of 2021, and is leading up it’s upcoming 10 track debut album release, I Will Want You When We Are Ghosts, coming March 5th. The video for this track was directed by Shawn Hook Carlton, and takes Alice to a pretty dark part of wonderland. Although the video like the song is dark and moody throughout, with Alice looking like she’s down and out, but it has a happy ending…well happy for Alice anyways.
I Will Want You When We Are Ghosts comes at a time when VanBurskirk had been going through a transitional period after years of ups and downs. He found himself at the end of a troubled relationship, two musical projects and at the end of his rope. Depression, anxiety and alcoholism had him metaphorically, and one night, literally, staring down the tracks at the lights of an oncoming train. He wasn’t sure he wanted to get out of the way, but he did, and with the help of some close friends started to manage these issues that once seemed unsolvable. He got sober, he got counselling and he started writing. And then the pandemic hit.
With the time and money no longer spent inching closer and closer to the floor of local dive bars and rock venues, he started writing songs, recording them on the only tools available to the self-professed Luddite – a guitar, a cheap Yamaha keyboard and his BlackBerry cell phone. Instead of learning to bake bread or crochet, he spent his quarantine learning music production and putting together an album documenting the fall and rise of the last months and years.
So if you’re looking for some raw emotion and the birth of a new project, (one which personally can’t wait to see where it goes) make sure to check out the new album coming March 5th! And if you’d like to learn more about Benjamin, we’ll be interviewing him live this Thursday on Quarantine Songs. This is Nowhere Near The Looking Glass, by The Blackout Orchestra.
Every weekday on Dropout Radio at 9, 1, 3 & 7 ET we’re showcasing some of Canada’s best independent music, from artists of all genres and all across the country. Stay tuned ’til the end of The Song of The Day on Dropout Radio to find today’s Secret Code and for your chance to win free Dropout merch!
