As half of the guitar-and-drums duo The Black Keys, Dan Auerbach has explored, and repeatedly blown up, nearly every shade of the blues for more than a decade. The band’s raw early years in Akron, Ohio, were defined by ragged, high-octane bangers full of heavy riffs and explosive drumming. That gave way to an expansive, radio-polished sound that’s elevated Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney to the status of arena-filling rock stars, but the blues have still been threaded through every iterative step. Now, on the heels of The Black Keys’ 2014 album Turn Blue, Auerbach turns his attention to a different expression of the blues, with his new band The Arcs and yet another stylistic shift. On The Arc’s debut, Yours, Dreamily, it takes the form of immersive R&B and soul, built around buzzy guitars and funky grooves.
It’s not the first time Auerbach has stepped away from his main gig — he’s put out a solo record and produced albums for Dr. John and Lana Del Rey — but with The Arc’s, he assembles a complete creative collaboration. Written and recorded quickly between working on other projects together, Auerbach sought out many of his longtime friends: Leon Michels, Homer Steinweiss and Nick Movshon are all frequent members of the Daptone family, and have played with artists like Sharon Jones and Solange. Then there’s Richard Swift, a distinctive songwriter and producer who’s served as a touring utility player in The Black Keys and The Shins. With contributions from guitarist Kenny Vaughan, Mariachi Flor de Toloache (the New York all-female mariachi band) and Tchad Blake, Yours, Dreamily, captures the spontaneity of players in a room as they come up with something new in the moment.
Taken as a whole, Yours, Dreamily, is already one of Auerbach’s most ambitious and fully realized albums. But The Arcs’ formula is so winning and natural that the band already has, at least according to Auerbach, a backlog of as many as 75 songs. If even some of those come to fruition, it could prove to be an enduring, endlessly rewarding collaboration.
The Fat Angel Sings 