Jim Diamond Did This With The White Stripes and The Ponys

You may or may not know that Jim Diamond produced The White Stripes' De Stijl and self-titled  albums and The Ponys' Laced With Romance. That's why we were thrilled when we found out Diamond was producing, The White Ravens' (the brainchild of brother and sister duo Amy and Will Bennett) album, Gargoyles and Weather Vanes. The quirky collection of  piano-driven pop melodies will be available on July 6th, but we're giving you a sneak peak with two songs available for download now.

At Ghetto Recorders, Diamond aided the duo’s juxtaposition of naiveté and wisdom, by honing Amy’s voice with wunderkind composer Will’s (who is only 17 by the way) vast talents. The White Ravens rounded out their sound with drummer Liberty DeVitto (Billy Joel’s long-time drummer) who recorded with the pair at the studio.

With a whirl of complex but catchy arrangements and layers of instruments and sounds, each one of Gargoyles’ songs tells their own story. The classic rock touches (saxophone!) of “Rainstorm” tell a tale from their grandfather’s memoirs, the tenderly rolling piano and instrumental breakdowns of “Broken Halves” sings of love gone wrong while the pure pop of “Draco,” is based on the book Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Almost two years in the making, while each song on Gargoyles could be stripped down to a simple keyboard, it’s the smartly placed sounds and arrangements that make the album soar. “It represents two years of our creative lives growing as musicians and performers. It has our genetic imprint on it,” quips Amy.

Gargoyles and Weather Vanes Track Listing
1. Sparks
2. Tick Tock
3. Rubber Band
4. Atomic Panda
5. Detritus
6. Broken Halves
7. 30 Stories
8. Call It A Hit
9. Rabbit
10. Rainstorm
11. Draco
12. Eulogy