Dangermuffin’s “Heritage,” Laidback, Yet Soaring: Born of the Sea, Awash in Mythic Passion

“To have a song mean something for somebody is the epitome of the best possible thing you want as an artist,” says Dan Lotti, lead singer-guitarist in the rangy, laid-back, then swept-up-high band Dangermuffin. They are as hard to label as their name is to define. “I want this album to help as many people as it can,” Lotti continued about their new album, Heritage, a dynamic 8-song studio album due out on March 31^st.

Dangermuffin is a Charleston, SC band that, fittingly, given the soaring vibrancy of some of the album’s songs, recorded the disk in Charleston’s historic Unitarian Church, a National Historic Landmark built in 1772. The Unitarian Church seems a good choice as well given the range of attitudes and beliefs evident in the album lyrics, such as a willingness to project a positive vibe in the direction of Cuba, though not necessarily Castro, in Ol’ Fidel. (Probably something, even this acknowledgment of Fidel, “if you got it, then you got it in the ocean,” that Donald Trump wouldn’t do, despite his apparently compromising love song to another dictator.)

The Castro tune is more about the ocean, one of the mellow, well-worded tunes that, much like Ancient Family, sets the tone, stressing the importance of where you’re from. This is whether in relation to land, beliefs, political inheritance, culture, race, or freedom of voice or lack of it.

Ancient Family maps it out like this,

Go back to the oldest countryWhen east/west was all ancestry/Up above us, and so below us

All around us and among us/They sing, they know/My Ancient Family/Will you rise up with me?

Mother of the deepest ocean/Waves express all emotion/Got sisters singin in the desert

Let it ring out through the forest/Shine on us all, these seeds are endless

Shine on us all, infinite awareness/Shine on us all, do you hear them call?

My Ancient Family/Our soul expanding/My ancient family/Our heart exploding.

The band’s unusual name has meaning, according to Lotti: “A lot of this natural empowerment and knowledge has been suppressed over time. and this is symbolized as the forbidden fruit – we see this as a sweet muffin – deliciously thought-provoking.” The album’s bright, colorful coat of arms also signifies. “It features,” Lotti says, “the inspirational elements for the band and the songs – the ocean, palms, sunbeams, and a rose – all of which define the band’s creative well, and thus their heritage.”

These aren’t new concerns for the laid-back, yet ambitious Dangermuffin. An earlier tune, Moonscapes says, with a difficult mix of whimsicality and depth,

What if we were on the shore of the sea of tranquility?/Lets drink and lose the clothes,I hope you would agree./And what we would find there?/Who knows./Just moonscapes, oceans and no clothes.I’m brought back to a time when folks were wondering./Writing albums to the dark side, to which they have never been.Oh, what will we find there?/Who knows.

The importance of roots, the grounding of home, and the base of culture are also in earlier songs like Healing Arizona and Back in the Pines. In the new album, water plays a paramount role, as in Ol’ Fidel and Ode to My Heritage, which meditates on heritage in myriad forms but largely the sea:

Pulls me forward, feels so strong/Ode to my heritage, wherever im from/Makes me wonder, where they’ve gone

Ode to my heritage, wherever im from/Rising, falling on the tip of my tongue/Ode to my heritage, wherever im from

Now im grievous, under their thumb/Ode to my heritage, wherever im from/Wherever im from, wherever im from

Wherever im from, so far off distant land/Wherever im from, wherever im from/Now I wander, mostly because

I have no land that I really know/The dust has settled, and fates aligned/And it leaves me yearnin, with a thorn in my side

 Are we none the wiser in this flesh and blood/Ode to my heritage, where have we gone?

Ill take you way back, to before the flood/Ode to my heritage, wherever im from

I hear a lot of reggae in their sound, and they do a good job of it. It has their individual twist to that ya’mon sound. Also, some jam, and there’s Americana, folk, rootsy-rock, tunes that jazzily ruminate, then ones that melodically soar. One musical strand builds a good base for another within the album’s southern geography.

The guys have added a fourth member to their mix, Markus Helander, from Finland, on drums, adding another dimension to D-muffin’s largely acoustic mix. Recording in the Unitarian Church furthers that acoustic ambition, with six cuts solely in the acoustic vibe. Other band members include Mike Sivilli on vocals and guitar, Steven Sandifer, percussion/harmony vocals, and guest artist Mike Quinn on saxophone.

The last tune, One Last Swim, salutes a dear friend of the band, Kirk Horn, who played drums for them at times and who played on this song, then died a week later. It also pays homage to the ocean that their friend loved dearly.

One last swim/Don’t you remember/All you are/Made of/Such a story/Never known/One last word/Was heard

The day when you left here/Everyone/Was in the water/When you said/Make a peace sign, give it to the ocean

Make a peace sign, give it to the ocean/Feel the waves, let go, now you know it/Make a peace sign give it to the ocean/Once last swim

The sea is forever/Once youre in/Theres no returnin’

Once again, water. The album is awash, and sea is paramount. The coast with its oceans, and the interior with its mountains “shine on us all,” says Dangermuffin, devoting most of the album’s attention to the sea’s rolling depths and, to a lesser extent, the mountains’ sky-breaking comfort. Lotti says he “hopes it (their new music) heals you as it heals us.” That’s the best way to look at and listen to Heritage, with an openness to its healing movement and beauty. After a few listens, you’ll be reaching for metaphoric oars no matter how landlocked you may be. This band, pure in its intent and endlessly melodic in results, will reward you repeatedly for sharing with them their passionate quest to discover and augment heritage.