Today, California singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer Chuck Prophet released a pair of new singles off his upcoming collaborative album with cumbia group ¿Qiensave? called “Sugar into Water” and “In The Shadows (for Elon).” The latest peek into Wake The Dead, set to release on October 25th through Yep Roc Records, “Sugar into Water” is a carefree romp expressed through the accompanying official video while the sardonic “In The Shadows (for Elon)” leaps and twirls with playful Farfisa even as it exorcises frustrations with a corrupt society which caters to the rich and powerful.
Watch The Official Video For “Sugar into Water” HERE
Listen To “In The Shadows (for Elon)” HERE
Pre-Order/Pre-Save Wake The Dead HERE
“‘Sugar Into Watch’ is a character driven song. And the character is an everyman. He’s bussing tables at the Country Club, but he’s a man with a mission. We play Texas a lot, and this song is a nod to that San Antonio sound. It’s a confection with the spirit of Doug Sahm and the Texas Tornadoes baked into it. We’ve got a young kid from San Antonio named Josh Baca playing accordion on this one, and he’s just a total virtuoso keeping that Flaco Jimenez tradition alive. Hearing him play is like hearing Jimi Hendrix or something. So wild and free. I love the way he bounces off the vocal, it’s all very conversational.”
On “In The Shadows (for Elon),” Prophet continued, “‘In a mansion like a tomb, he can still smell her perfume.’ Elon Musk. In some ways, I’d love to see him ‘ride his rocketship away’ like this song says. Maybe we can set up a GoFundMe page to make it happen. Seriousness aside, my friends have all heard me rant and rave about life here in Start Up City, about how the city has bent over to give tax breaks and incentives to the likes of Musk and that whole crowd, and how unchecked growth has led to an intense acceleration of gentrification on a level no one could have predicted. It’s a conflict. Because, on the other hand, one of the things I really love about my home town is that most everybody here came from somewhere else. I came to San Francisco to go to college. I dropped out, but I never left. San Francisco is where I invented myself. It gave me my education in the music, arts, culture, politics, and sexes. I was an 18-year-old brat who’d seen the Dead Kennedys at the Mabuhay and wanted more. These young techies came here to chase a dream, too, just like the rest of us. Strap on your seatbelt, Elon. And don’t spend all your money in one galaxy.”
“Sugar into Water” and “In The Shadows (for Elon)” follow the release of the album’s lead single and title track “Wake The Dead,” an anthem that reckons with forces beyond our control while learning to let go, a recurring theme at the core of the album.
An extraordinary and unlikely pairing, Prophet and ¿Qiensave? blend seamlessly together on Wake The Dead, a collection that dives headfirst into the world of cumbia music, which consumed and comforted Prophet during a recent bout with stage four lymphoma and subsequent recovery.His fascination with the genre began after experiencing a weekly cumbia night at a local haunt of his in San Francisco’s Mission district. He quickly became obsessed: collecting old vinyl from Latin America, studying its origins, DJ’ing, and loading his friends up with new mixes every time they came to visit. After he was diagnosed, he had a lot of time to just sit and listen as he went through treatments. “I was going through a tunnel,” he recalls. “It was dark. But I had music: music to play, music to listen to, music to get me out of my head. Music was my savior.” More than any other genre, Cumbia served as a faithful musical companion and reprieve during his immunotherapy and chemotherapy.
Once he was finally feeling better, Prophet started driving out to Salinas on a regular basis to jam with a group he’d fallen in love with called ¿Qiensave?, a band of brothers from the Central Coast farming community. The sessions came together on a whim, for the sheer fun of it at first, but Prophet soon invited the band to back him up at a couple of live shows, and the immediate reaction from audiences made it clear they were on to something special. Prophet and ¿Qiensave? hit the studio soon afterwards, where they blended with his longtime backing band, The Mission Express, to track the heart of Wake The Dead live on the floor. It was chaotic at times, cramming as many as eight musicians into the same studio space, but they prioritized gut feeling over sonic perfection and allowed the undeniable energy of the performances to guide them.
The result is a profoundly adventurous celebration of life that balances hope and fear in equal measure, a rich and exultant meditation on what really matters from an artist who always manages to find the light, even in the face of the most oppressing darkness. Prophet approaches the style not as an academic or historian, but as a fan with a voracious appetite and an insatiable curiosity. The songs are intoxicatingly rhythmic, all but demanding you move your body while you listen, with arrangements that blur the lines between tradition and innovation, between past and present, between cultures and countries. There are flashes of rock and roll, punk, surf, and soul, all filtered through the streets of San Francisco and wrapped up in the rich legacy of a genre that traces its roots back hundreds of years and thousands of miles.
Track Listing:
01) Wake The Dead
02) Betty’s Song
03) Give The Boy A Kiss
04) First Came The Thunder
05) Sally Was A Cop
06) Red Sky Night
07) Same Old Crime
08) One Lie For Me, One For You
09) Sugar Into Water
10) In The Shadows (for Elon)
11) Good Day To Be Alive
