Toronto-based musician Danté Ravenhearst follows the success of her debut single, Asphalt with her debut EP, Half Sun / Half Moon.
Featuring atmospheric folk instrumentation, shimmering percussion, somber pedal steel, organ and acoustic guitar, Half Sun / Half Moon is an exploration of the mourning of connections both before and after they are lost alongside their haunting correlation with environmental grief.
The recording of Half Sun / Half Moon in November 2023 was a labour of friendship between Ravenhearst and a group of close Toronto and Hamilton-based session musicians, Ben McWebb, Kurt van Bendegem and Jonathan Horvath.
A mutual love for the rawness of classic country and folk music production brought Ravenhearst and producer, Matt Fasullo creatively together. Fasullo's self-produced work occupies the atmospheric alternative indie folk rock space, pulling the traditional country-folk elements of Half Sun / Half Moon into a fresh, contemporary context, a marriage of old and new.
"I am really entranced by the correlation of loss between our emotional and environmental spaces - with climate grief as an active part of our lived experience now, the relationships we mourn are oftentimes associated with a physical environment that also no longer exists," says Ravenhearst of the thread of the environmental and emotional grief that flows through her music.
Danté Ravenhearst is a musician, writer, conservationist, and scientist, originally hailing from the Kawartha Lakes and currently residing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Ravenhearst's music on every dimension is the meeting place of old and new. Her songs are composed of atmospheric alternative folk instrumentation with shimmering percussion, alongside an eerie old world country sound featuring somber pedal steel, organ and acoustic guitar.
Lyrically, her songs are reminiscent of classic country and traditional folk storytelling, while her references to the correlation of emotional and environmental loss feel relevant to our time. From an alt-folk rock number, to a finger-picking mourning tune with dashes of spoken word, to a gypsy jazz rock ballad, Ravenhearst's marriage of diverse instrumentation to the poetry of her lyrics is a cohesive exploration of unconventional Americana.
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