“IT SOUNDS SO clichéd,” says Dave Hartley, “but the first time I ever smoked pot was while listening to The Dark Side Of The Moon. It was the first time I’d ever experienced ‘active listening’, where you’re noticing the timbre of the instruments, thinking about the lyrics. That changed my life completely. It did!”
As the bassist for Philadelphia heavyweights The War On Drugs, Hartley reckons that, in normal times, he’s out playing shows 160 days of the year. But he has also built up his own studio project, Nightlands. The fourth album, Moonshine, is a beautiful, melancholy selection, its otherworldly mood leading reviewers to dust off words like ‘hazy’, ‘gauzy’, ‘woozy’. Some members of his day-band are among the handful of guest contributors, but Nightlands’ vocal-rich soundworld is decidedly…