Boston-based indie folk quartet Darlingside will bring their signature superpower harmonies to Provincetown after an opening performance by Canadian singer-songwriter Taylor Ashton. Darlingside draws frequent comparisons to late-sixties groups like Crosby, Stills & Nash, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Byrds, yet their penchant for science fiction and speculative futurism shows their aesthetic to be anything but "retro." NPR Music describes the four friends’ collaborative work as "exquisitely arranged, literary-minded baroque folk-pop" and pronounces their album Extralife "perfectly crafted." Singer-songwriter Taylor Ashton combines folk tradition and funk, his instrument of choice the clawhammer banjo.
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Darlingside’s new album, Extralife, begins with the words "It's over now / The flag is sunk / The world has flattened out.” While the band's critically acclaimed 2015 release Birds Say was steeped in nostalgia and the conviction of youth, Extralife grapples with dystopian realities and uncertain futures. The four close friends perform all of their intensely collaborative music around a single vocal microphone, inviting audiences into a lush, intimate world where four voices are truly one.
Taylor Ashton grew up surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the old-growth rainforests of Canada's west coast. His songs are inspired by the crooked primeval funk of traditional old-time music, the humor and heartbreak of Randy Newman, the cosmic emotionality of midcareer Joni Mitchell, and the sage vulnerability of Bill Withers.