Pete Lanctot & The Stray Dogs, Invisible Familiars

New York Music Daily writes that, "Pete Lanctot personifies pretty much everything good about New York's most happening music scene." His songs are surreal and mysterious narratives featuring sordid casts of characters who’s origins are vague, and seem equally likely to be found in present day New York City, a Memphis juke joint of the 1920s or hitchhiking a depression era plains state highway and steeped in the American traditions of blues, folk and country. Backed by The Stray Dogs, a talented and versatile cast of musicians and improvisers Lanctot’s music is original, rabble rousing, heartbreaking and soul searching, always exploring the non-traditional without relying on reproduction.


"I'm digging in my heels and I'm leaning back. Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you. Just don't stop talking."

Jared Samuel was describing the steep incline he was perched upon, trying to find quiet during soundcheck and trying not to tumble down a hill. I was asking him questions about his record. I'd been listening to Disturbing Wildlife every day. For weeks.
His voice sounded so familiar. "The only student I ever had couldn't deal with the fact that music didn't offer concrete answers." He was talking about and around Invisible Familiars' pulsating penultimate album track, "New Mutation Boogie." He recorded the song's three drummers – Ryan Sawyer, Yuval Lion, and Andrew Borger – in their homes, gathering wizard heartbeats around NYC to take back to the studio and into the wise grasp of Michael Leonhart, the album's producer and MVP. As Jared spoke, he mingled swirling meaning with the click click facts of how technical decisions were made. Sometimes these seemed the same.

"I like the name."

"There's a longer one, ya know. New Mutation Boogie: Dance With Your Difficulties."

That's when the light flickered and I realized that talking to him was just like listening to the album.

I crack a smile. I'd woken up singing the title track, the first song he wrote on the Gypsy houseboat and the minimalist centerpiece of the album's overflowing table.

Jared kinda sounds like Mark Bolan. I'll just say it, cause you might think it. It's science. When I asked him what record felt to him like how he wanted Disturbing Wildlife to feel to me, he said Cuckooland by Robert Wyatt, promptly adding "and the first time I listened to What's Going On through headphones, stoned." He's got a Small Faces song link for just about everything I say and he knew the Lifetones song I sent him yesterday, which may be my secret litmus test. When I listen to Invisible Familiars, I don't hear just anything – I hear everything. It's the cumulative result of being alive with the radio on. And I'm not talking about subliminal influences, because even the color of the sky can turn into a song. It's that other transaction, where music accompanies your body – and your brain inside of it – and enables your understanding and definition of life. And then you go and make something: some food, a picture, your bed, a friend, a baby, a joke, a new song.

-Sara Padgett Heathcott, Hometapes