- Campfire Dan Whitehouse 2:31
Award-winning singer-songwriter Dan Whitehouse continues to renew, reinvent and reimagine – touching listeners with his observations and moving them with his sensitivity and impeccable songwriting.
Sitting on the foundations of teenage touring and recording with Naomi and Sonara, Dan’s early career culminated with a Reading Festival appearance in 2003. After going solo, Dan then signed to Reveal Records with whom he released three celebrated albums.
The son of a Wolverhampton community radio pioneer, Dan starting his recording and touring career as a teenager with Naomi before fronting rock band Sonara and playing Reading Festival. After deciding to go solo Dan then released his first two albums on his own label before signing to the Reveal Records roster alongside Joan As Policewoman and The Little Unsaid.
Dan’s 2020 release Dreamland/Tomorrow, was described as unveiling a “strikingly new maturity and willingness to push the envelope” (Folk Radio UK), featuring collaborations with John Elliott (The Little Unsaid), Eric Lane (Joan as Police Woman), minimalist composer Richard J. Birkin, and BBC Jazz Award winning Saxophonist Xhosa Cole.
2022 saw Dan continue to develop and evolve his offering whilst showing how he carefully nurtured his creativity during an imposed stay in Japan from January 2020 to June 2021. Releases included The Glass Age (out 22 July) – a collaboration with Swedish musician Gustaf Ljunggren, which looks at how our human experience and ways of connecting have changed through the ‘glass’ of virtual communication. Another, his Arts Council funded song-cycle Voices From The Cones draws from the oral history archive of Stourbridge Glassworks.
Voices From The Cones – hit the Folk Charts at #15 and was nominated for an ‘Innovative Project 2022’ award by Fatea Magazine.
In 2023 Dan continues his collaboration with New York hammered dulcimer player Max Z-T. Their debut record Ten Steps will be out in September and the duo will tour in October.
Isolated from his infant son and restricted from making art during the global upheaval of 2020, DAN WHITEHOUSE took solace in connectivity through digital space. A snatched zoom call, a message on instagram, a late flurry of lovelorn emojis.
“I had an epiphany,” says Dan. “Screens are okay! We should embrace them. They’re magical, really. A portal to our loved ones, in our pockets, at all times.”
Dan reflected on how much of our human experience and expression is now mediated through the looking glass of virtual communication, and crafted a delicate suite of songs to soundtrack his musings.
Fittingly, for the subject matter, Dan recorded The Glass Age remotely, shuttling stems back and forth with Swedish electronica whizkid Gustaf Ljunggren. Their online collaboration bore fruit last summer, in the shape of glacial masterpiece The Glass Age.
A father’s ode to smiley emojis, midnight WhatsApps and accidentally being on mute.
Now, in the spirit of life returning to normal, Dan is re-releasing the songs from The Glass Age in acoustic form. Reflections From The Glass Age – an acoustic sequel – presenting the same songs stripped-back, in emotional and vulnerable performances captured live in Copenhagen when the pair were finally able to meet IRL.
“These new versions of the songs evolved so organically” says Dan. “They began life in hibernation, and were recorded and produced remotely. Now, stepping out from behind the glass, I’ve been able to breathe new life into them.”
Campfire kicks off with the immortal couplet “When you change the way you look at things / The things you look at start to change”. Rainbows Never End is an emotive tear-jerker about Dan’s little boy. The Thin Blue Line uses a searing metaphor about explorers trapped under Antarctic permafrost to evoke icy long-distance longing.
No longer limited to the digital realm, Dan is relieved to be out and about again.
“I think we need to acknowledge the value and validity of both. Face-to-face hugs, holding hands, a sunrise waltz – or a digital wave with a daft doggyear filter on. The tears behind the screen are just as real.”
Learning how to thrive under a new paradigm, and harnessing newfound techniques to focus on self-care and embracing his inner artist, Dan Whitehouse is today an artist at the very peak of his powers. And happily, at the time of writing, he is in Japan enjoying time with his boy.
SOURCE: Official Bio
