![]() Stewart, who was on the closing end of a divorce, and in the early phases of her relationship with Arnez, feels she derived the songs from emotional contusions and healing. ![]() ![]() Up in the mountains, they found ample space for creativity and headed home with a few songs that, they humbly offer, “wrote themselves.”īetween the 2017 retreat and recording their second album in 2019, the two penned an entire tracklist. In the new band, Stewart drew on the early influences of her grandfather’s Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline records, back home in Catawba County, and expanded upon his knowledge of the country sound.Īfter a second record ( Nobody’s Darlin’) with the Boyfriends in 2015, Stewart and Arnez made their eponymous debut in 2017 as Blue Cactus, expanding upon regional bluegrass traditions into a mid-century, classic country sound.įollowing their debut release, the duo spent a week at the Wildacres residency in Little Switzerland, North Carolina. Arnez, a South Florida native who picked up the guitar in his mid-teens, was one of the backing string players and co-writers before he became Stewart’s suitor. Though penned pre-pandemic, the yearning lamentations speak directly to weary lovers, repeating, “Let me keep you wondering / I wanna be strangers again.”īefore there was Blue Cactus, there was Steph Stewart & the Boyfriends. The Chapel Hill-based duo’s sophomore LP, Stranger Again, out May 7 on Sleepy Cat Records, is anchored with a titular sentiment that resonates with cohabiters everywhere, especially after weathering the past year at home. She’s climbing into “Stranger Again,” the title track of her upcoming album with Mario Arnez as Blue Cactus. "We’ll pretend we’re lovers / Something more than friends / Right beside you, but I wanna be closer than this,” Steph Stewart sings with mournful levity. With a high lonesome twang, an Emmylou-like southern drawl, and blistering guitar techniques, Blue Cactus’ new record Stranger Again exercises the honky-tonk muscles to firmly bear the flag for a new generation of classic country practitioners.Blue Cactus: Stranger Again | Their finest work yet, Blue Cactus resuscitate a fleeting style of honest-to-goodness country music considered valueless to a “new” country music where songwriting is officiated by financialĪnalysts and teams of marketing plutocrats instead of woebegone troubadours. Throughout Stranger Again, they explore loss and longing, self-love and reckoning with personal, political and human struggles. The otherworldliness of the music is a perfect contrast to their distinctly grounded, human storytelling lyrics. Stranger Again is a deep dive into Cosmic American music, with the band taking their sound into ambitious new planes, where country-rock meets light psychedelia as the soaring vocals meet twangy slide-guitars and propulsive bass-lines. The album has received enthusiastic attention from tastemakers including NoDepression, American Songwriter, FLOOD Magazine, Talkhouse, and INDY Week among others. Blue Cactus, the North Carolina duo of Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez, make CosmicĪmericana: a blend of grit, glitz, groove, and twang that evokes a celestial soundscape of mid-century heartbreak.įollowing their critically acclaimed 2017 debut and a string of singles in 2020 their evolution is made plain on their sophomore LP, Stranger Again, released on Sleepy Cat Records.
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