Distant Cousins — Sideways

“It’s the sound of backroads and big dreams. It’s the sound of sing-a-long-ready choruses… Basically, it’s the sound of your new favorite band, Distant Cousins.” – Amoeba Music

LA-based folk-pop trio Distant Cousins offers up a blend of music that, like the band name, suggests both deep connections and a wide variety of genres.

Each cousin brings his unique background to the group. Duvid grew up in the Middle East, on a small musical commune in Israel full of hippies and gypsies - owning only record players as appliances. Ami and Dov grew up on the East Coast, attending the same high school in New Jersey a few years apart. Ami is formally trained from Berklee and is forever a fan and student of bold and modern production values. Dov and Duvid come from the organic perspective of stripping a song down to its essentials—guitar and voice—to test its mettle. The blend of these two vantage points—cutting edge pop sonics with classic songcraft—is a thorough line that runs deeply through the Distant Cousins song catalog.

Their original music reflects a fluid collaboration of three distinct songwriters, producers, and performers. In the studio, the cousins share various roles as producers, writers and musicians. At their live shows, however, roles are more delineated; Ami sings, plays bass, and handles looping responsibilities, Dov sings, plays drums, and acoustic guitar, and Duvid sings and is the maestro of a myriad of stringed instruments. Onstage, the band also augments its sound with “honorary cousins” as guest musicians.

To capture the essence of their live show, Distant Cousins entered Boulevard Studios in early 2020 to record an audio and video performance culminating into Here & Now, a live visual album and collection of acoustic and reimagined selections from their catalog (Distant Cousins EP, 2014; debut album Next of Kin, 2018, Jullian Records) and two new songs, “Here & Now” and “The Day.”

In keeping with tradition, the Cousins invited guests to accompany them: Los Angeles-based trio The Songbirds (featuring Gaby Moreno, Erica Canales and Dannielle DeAndrea) bring their own magic to “Mighty Love” while Lindsey Ray is featured on the first single and title track “Here & Now” available 5/8 on Jullian Records.

Just as the title suggests, the single is about “recognizing how little we know of the future and appreciating the here and now,” says Cousin Dov. It was serendipitously written only 2 weeks prior to our current situation, but its message is timely. In fact, following her visit to Los Angeles to record in late-February, Lindsey returned home to Nashville to self-quarantine. And due to current travel restrictions and social distancing guidelines, the “Here & Now” video was recorded Zoom-style, making the song even more poignant.