"I Wanna Dance With You" by Luke Concannon & Darius Christian Jones
Review
Out now is "I Wanna Dance With You", Luke Concannon's follow-up to his popular "Brother" single (which you can also find on ‘Hot Music Live Presents Volume Thirteen'.)
Collaborating again with Darius Christian Jones (whose birthday is coincidentally today), this is a beautifully complementary piece to the last one. Love is pretty much the subject of all Luke's songs: whether for whole groups of people, learning to love oneself a bit better or specific individuals. While "Brother" focussed on loving thy "enemy" across the false narratives of division, "I Wanna Dance With You", is without a scintilla of a doubt to do with his "beloved" wife, Stephanie Hollenberg (the cover photo alone is explicit in this regard). It's also worth noting that part of the bond between Luke & Darius is making "joyous" music & that is definitely what you have here.
In fact while Luke has long tended towards poetic, allusive lyrics, since he is motivated to write things he cares about greatly, he needs you to grasp what he's saying. A neat balancing act, but one he's long perfected. This one also references plenty of cultural landmarks
The other one of course is how he writes catchy pop songs which you can process comfortably & yet when you listen critically (as a reviewer must do), consist of strange structures, weird chords & rhythms which are more complex than you first think. I have no idea whether Luke listens to much experimental jazz or not, but he seems in tune with some of the ideas & can translate them into a popular idiom. That is took them a couple of years to finally hone the song to their satisfaction perhaps hints at the size of the task of this but also their drive for perfection.
Darius is keen to assert how the music is "anti machine": real instruments, people & hearts, which Luke feels takes it into the area of spirituality: which is precisely, as we know, where he aims to lead us.
Twenty years ago, Luke wrote a song called "Girls" and since "I Wanna Dance With You" is palpably about his relationship with a woman, I thought I'd revisit the earlier song & try & visualise the romantic journey he's been on. Firstly, it's interesting how explicitly he expresses his feelings now: back in 2004 the poetic approach is at peak allusion level: I'm not sure In fact now I listen to it, what "Girls" is about: it's quite abstract but seems to touch on regret & movement onwards whereas this latest one is definitely about having arrived somewhere great & commitment to remaining.
This is Luke's special place, but Darius gets it too & must identify with it, and the last thing you'd expect from Luke is a sense of exclusivity: he'll want you to identify with it as well (the words certainly make the sense of universality clear).. Even if, like the rest of us, you are not married to Stephanie Hollenberg.
Later you can join him on Zoom or Facebook at 2000 for a launch party (the Zoom link is https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIucOmqrTIqGNTiLpVLN7bgRJR0SfdV00HG#/registration) hosted by Stephanie where, unsurprisingly given what he's all about, they'll be joined by author/campaigner Chuck Collins for chat about the things which move & concern them.
