Rounding out a packed year of two album releases and three upcoming European gigs, Dhani Harrison assembles a stellar lineup to perform the entirety of ‘INNERSTANDING’ in the aptly-named live concert video INNERSOUNDSTAGE, slated for a September 27th release.

“INNERSOUNDSTAGE” (trailer) – Dhani Harrison

It’s been a banner year for Dhani Harrison.

Following the October 2023 release of INNERSTANDING, he teamed with the Tuvan throat-singing group Huun-Hurr-Tu for their Dreamers In the Field album. In addition to two London gigs in the fall of ‘23, and a May 2024 cameo alongside Eric Clapton at a Royal Albert Hall charity gig, Harrison has announced a trio of European dates for this coming fall in London, Paris, and Berlin. In anticipation of these dates, an upcoming live concert film is slated for a September 27th release. As a companion piece to 2020’s IN///PARALIVE, Dhani Harrison assembles a live ensemble to perform the intricate layers of his record INNERSTANDING, in the cheekily-dubbed INNERSOUNDSTAGE.

INNERSTANDING - Dhani Harrison — INNERSTANDING, Dhani Harrison’s sophomore solo album, released in October 2023

The performance, cut with interstitials of surveillance camera-esque BTS shots, offers a new spin on the material first heard on Harrison’s sophomore solo record last year. A robust live ensemble- fronted by Harrison and featuring Donovan Hepburn on drums, Jeff Wootton on guitar, Josh Giroux on keyboards and vocals, Toby Butler on bass, keyboards, and vocals, and guest vocalists Mereki Beach, Liela Moss and saxophonist Alex White – tackle the album in full, voiceover samples, string stabs, pitch-shifted vocals and all. The result is a production that feels at once sprawling and intimate, faithful to the album’s arrangements yet spontaneous in its instrumental feel.

The opening track, “Dangerous Lies,” is given a hip-hop twist as Hepburn’s drums straighten Harrison’s distorted vocals into a rap. Bathed in fluorescent light, the band delivers on honoring the elaborate layers of the record, their between-song banter cutting up the sonic tension. (A highlight is the Harrison quip “Cool lightsaber shit going on over here!”) Standout falsetto vocals alongside Leila Moss shimmer on Ahoy There.

Incense wafts through the air as Harrison recites the pitch-manipulated chant on “Right Side of History.” White’s cutting, honking baritone sax enhances the live mix and there’s more of a jam feel to the instrumental sections here. Harrison holds two fingers aloft heralding “side 2,” and blurred face visuals are intercut with the live performance elements. Glowing triangular visuals and ghostly doubled harmonies on “Ghost Garden,” a co-write with Mereki Beach, accentuate the track’s ethereal vibe. The centerpiece of the record – and consequently the film – “I.C.U” is given a lush airing with warm acoustic guitars front-and-center in the mix.

Last year, Harrison told Atwood that accompanying visuals are always at the forefront of his album concepting, designing Innerstanding as the companion piece to his debut IN///PARALLEL: “So with my OCD, [the follow-up] has to look as good as the original. Like the debut vinyl and the two, when you put them together they’re like a set. Same fonts, but different covered foiling. Yeah, I’m super OCD about that stuff.”

In addition to the corresponding graphic accents for each record- a pine cone symbolizing opening the mind/ removing the mask for IN///PARALLEL and the protective Celtic rune Ægishjálmur for Innerstanding, respectively- the visuals for their corresponding live concert films are similarly deliberate. The former was shot mostly in a round with bright studio lighting red curtains flanking the live band, the latter soaked in a neon blue light and cloaked mostly in a black backdrop.

The starkly lit visuals of INNERSOUNDSTAGE are punctuated by elements of a surveillance state, 6-panel camera grids honing in on the musicians’ movements and the record’s sense of social media-induced paranoia. At times,the blue light is harsh; at others, cool for the nautical lyrics of Ahoy There! and ICU. We see the band laugh and revel in the live setting, then hundreds of glowing knobs illuminate pedal boards and sinister growling guitars. The effect is immersive and sublime.

Dhani Harrison's INNERSOUNDSTAGE poster — Dhani Harrison’s INNERSOUNDSTAGE poster

The River Flows At Its Own Speed With Dhani Harrison

:: INTERVIEW ::

As INNERSTANDING nears its one year anniversary, Dhani Harrison, a deft ensemble and the visual team of Joel Kazuo Knoernschild and Randy Wedick imbue these tracks with a welcome warmth and a renewed light. INNERSOUNDSTAGE is an essential visual and sonic supplement to the Dhani Harrison catalog and damn, those frequencies are so low.

INNERSOUNDSTAGE releases September 27th, 2024.

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