The angels we wrestle _{by Madelaine Empson}

Delaney Davidson is one of our best, brightest, and most beloved singer-songwriters. Drawing influence from the likes of Johnny Cash, Buster Keaton, The Birthday Party, and Hank Williams, the four-time APRA New Zealand Country Music Song of the Year winner makes “beautifully haunting” (Rolling Stone) music that revels in the darker side of things and explores the human condition with a gothic Americana twang and folk-noir sensibilities.

Davidson unveils his 11^th studio album Baby Heavyweight on the 26^th of June. Ahead of the nationwide album release tour – which sees the multi-instrumentalist play St Peter’s Village Hall in Paekākāriki on the 10^th and Meow in Wellington on the 18^th of July with a stacked band – we got into his music, ideas, and hopes for the future of humanity.

How do you feel your music, and the world it reflects, has evolved across 11 albums?

Baby Heavyweight has a feeling that somehow belongs to a story that we know but haven’t heard. I’ve always tried to capture feelings of longing or emotional stirrings as vehicles for the messages I weave through my songs, and over time I have become more and more at home with acting as the foil that reflects this for people. I look at it like some kind of cathartic experience. I am also a fan of not going a direct route to this goal. Sideways crab strategy. 

Baby Heavyweight has an interesting theme: Lucifer seeking redemption through recontextualising his past. Could you please speak more to it?

I’ve always been interested in the story of expulsion and as with everything I think there’s two sides to most stories, so combining these seemed like a natural way to explore the concept of The Fall. Once I started digging into it I realised how deep it goes and how many of us have these experiences from our past where we are either living out old events or working to free ourselves from them. Lucifer represents us all in a lot of ways. The ideas of being born helpless into original sin, the burden to carry through life, the anger at being misunderstood, the facing of shame, and ultimately looking for a way to find peace.

If listeners could take away one thing from the album, what would you want it to be?

Self-forgiveness, love, and a deep respect for the life we have. I know it sounds like lofty goals for an album, but I think it’s time to collectively stop our unconscious slide into the obvious traps of our times and live consciously again. I guess this stuff passes beyond the hopes for my album into a general call to wake up and become active in our own lives. I also always hope the songs and shows we perform will bring some reflective state where we can experience together the angels we wrestle with.