Cactus Lee

Still catching up on the works that slipped through the cracks — the best use of time in early January, if I’m being honest. Took me a while, but the latest from Cactus Lee is hitting the speakers this week, and it’s a nice evolution of the sound that Kevin Dehan has been creating over the last few years. If I’m not mistaken, this is the third album in a row from Dehan that I’m catching up on a bit late. Maybe there’s just something inherently January about Cactus Lee. Maybe I should be paying better attention. Finding his way into the ever-expanding stable at ORG, with a push from Aquarium Drunkard, the record finds itself in good company alongside the Cosmic American slipstream that’s given us Color Green and Taper’s Choice lately.

When Cactus Lee first wafted onto the speakers Dehan was working a lonesome lilt, embracing loner country in the bedroom, but as with the scrub up that happened on Perfect Middle Hall, Dehan once again gives the cactus a cleaning and offers up a studio fresh album that’s got one foot in the Americana crate and another in the country coffers. Produced again by Kyle Crusham, the record sidles into a ‘70s tangle of roots, letting the Rhodes run rampant, doused in the glow of an afternoon sun. Where many of his contemporaries are embracing the cosmic charms of New Riders and the Burritos, Dehan seems intent on finding the bottom half of the bottle that fed ‘70s singer-songwriters on Caravan. Leon, Gene, Feat, and Souther all seem to simmer in the pot. Background vocals smolder through “East & West,” and the studio seems to gleam on the spare, but hungry “River Rhone.” It’s as accomplished an album as Dehan has offered yet, and worlds away from the works that first brought him to my ears. This record seems to have been buried in the onslaught of 2023, but its worth a bit of excavating to get this one into your life.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.