Why you'll like Freedom's Nightmare

Track listing and sampling here.

The songs on "Freedom's Nightmare," Lars Din's first release since 2004's "Know Where You Are / Conflict," romp playfully through a Florida landscape populated by floods, junk dealers, self-conscious armies, broken-hearted travelers, riots, annoying dogs, addiction, and bicycle accidents, all back-lit by a tenacious hope in the future.

Gathering a carnival of Gainesville musical talent from tuba to fiddle to rowdy porch swing harmony, the band features skilled players from local jazz, roots and punk scenes, all deftly captured on disc by Goldentone Studio's Rob McGregor.

Like an itinerant troupe of minstrels, the 19 tracks migrate confidently through the territory charted by Lars Din's songwriting, pausing here by the cypress swamp to spin a tale of catastrophe, and there on the cobbled streets of St. Augustine to remember days gone by.

The tunes are anchored in the American roots tradition, and yet range in texture from the wistful funkiness of "Cozy & Warm" and rollicking trash jug band sound of "Justified By You," to old timey revivalism in "Devil's Radio," a driving tango holler on "Everybody Loves My Baby," and the stark eastern requiem of "Junk Shop Murder."

With a passion for lyric and melody, Lars Din began crafting songs between cross-country hitch-hiking trips, on the motley streets of Chicago in the late 80's. An incurable drifter, Din has written songs in Sighisoara, Romania, Bamako, Mali, and on many a dingy sofa in North America.

But the songs of Freedom's Nightmare are distinctly homegrown Florida; they are steeped in such pride of place that listening to this record suggests the moment tourist eyes get a glimpse behind the Disney facade. It is a tour of Florida listeners will want to make again and again, where infectious melody and musicianship conspire with apt storytelling to leave a visitor satisfied that if all is not well in paradise, there is yet beauty coming from the madness.

Excerpt from
review by Gainesville Sun

From the first track, you get a sense of being in the life-altering epiphanic scene of a Tarantino movie, and it's not just the Southwestern-style trumpet sounds wrapped around the lyric's cadence that does it.

Like Quentin, Lars Din Song Riot comes across as entirely American. Listening is a comfortable and familiar experience, despite all the twists and turns...

Virtually anyone, especially Floridians, can connect with these lyrics.Besides personal messages written so artfully that they can become the listener's own thoughts, "Freedom's Nightmare" deals directly with things that are right around us.

The Santa Fe River, St. Augustine and 13th Street all make non-superficial cameos on the album...the level of intelligence throughout the band allows for references to local history that most people don't even know.

Lars Din Song Riot is artful, poignant, technically impressive and smooth music. I really don't know what more to ask for.


Go to track listing and lyrics page