Brian Dunne&#8217;s Latest Album Preview

NYC-based singer/songwriter Brian Dunne released “I Watched The Light,” the third single from his forthcoming album Clams Casino, which will be released on September 5 via Missing Piece Records.

The song, which features background vocals from his Fantastic Cat bandmates, is a poignant meditation on how ambition and dreams can fade as life chips away at the spark that once defined us.

Following his acclaimed 2023 solo album Loser on the Ropes and two word-of-mouth successes from his cheeky supergroup Fantastic Cat, Dunne sought to craft a more cohesive statement, based on some of the archetypes he’s observed throughout his life as a working musician and touring artist around the world.

“I was talking to my bandmate about renting a car in Germany and said something like, ‘It was easier to do this when we were in Ohio!’ And he responded, ‘Ah man, after a while, it’s all Ohio.’ And I was like – I’m using that! I have a lot of fun writing these small stories that still feel broad. We imagine our dreams dying with this romantic, fated kiss on an airplane that’s about to crash. But a dream sort of slowly withers away. It erodes until it’s unrecognizable. This song is an amalgamation of a couple people I knew. I went to music school, and I watched a lot of people that it just didn’t take for. Outside of music, I feel like you see a dulling of people’s spark in your mid-30s. And it’s not an indictment of them. It’s an indictment of what the world will do to somebody with that look in their eye.”
– Dunne

Clams Casino is the rare rock record that manages to inspire without ignoring the darkness, whose subject matter feels authentically universal yet allergic to cliché, whose characters are equally clever and open-hearted. While the lyrics describe scenes of modern despair, the music is the most uplifting and hard-hitting in Dunne’s catalog. Accompanying himself on nearly all instruments, Dunne sought inspiration from an era of classic rock that tentatively embraced the new wave sound of the late-’70s, incorporating keyboards and synths without delving into the digital gloss of the CD era. The resulting album is a burst of energy, a colossal leap forward, and a prolonged moment of direct eye contact from one of this generation’s sharpest observers of young American life.

Brian Dunne Clams Casino — Photo Courtesy of Marianka Campisi

Brian Dunne has shared bills with everyone from Cat Power to Caroline Rose, performed on songs with Lizzie No (“Lagunita“) and Caitlin Rose (“The Kids Are All Grown“), and in 2021 landed an unexpected hit in the Netherlands with his standalone single “New Tattoo,” which led to him performing to an audience of 17,000 at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome.

Last month, Dunne announced a fall tour that kicks off on September 5 with an album release show at Mercury Lounge in New York City, followed by stops in Nashville, Chicago, Boston, and many more. Additionally, his band Fantastic Cat will play select dates this summer, including support slots with Lucius and Dawes. For more information on Dunne, click here.