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Nov 01, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Kate Shearer

Over the past few years, This Lonesome Paradise have crafted a singular sound pulling from dusty western noir, slinking lounge music, moody goth soundscapes, and shades of shadowy trip hop. The band is led by vocalist and guitarist E. Ray Béchard, alongside Jordin Bordeaux on keys and vocals, Ivan Garcia on drums, Chris Wilson on bass, and Herb Benham IV on slide guitar. Together, Béchard and company cemented their style with their 2021 debut, Electric Dreams, and their 2022 album Nightshades, before returning last month with their third full-length record, Luna Nocturna.

Béchard says of the record, “The songs are heavy, wounded, raw, delicate, sparse, orchestral, and detailed. Much like the This Lonesome Paradise albums of the past I do not limit their mood/genre but instead bathe in where they may lead. Somehow I hear a late 70’s quality to the record, though I don’t know exactly why…maybe due to the limited amount of, and specific, effects used. And although the album still falls into my western noir/lounge/cinema thing, it has definitely taken a step in direction away from the expected.

The studio process was much more intentional than in past records…more time in preproduction with tones and capture, as I had a very specific sonic scene in mind for each of the instruments and the part they would play in the overall soundscape. I wanted it to sound close and personal, as though you are witnessing it in a small club of an unidentifiable time period…I think it definitely does that.”

Today, the band are back with a new video for one of the album’s highlights, “Into The Ether,” premiering with Under the Radar.

Béchard describes “Into The Ether” as “...a story of love gone wrong…a woman who avenges her murder from the grave by shapeshifting into an animal via postmortem witchcraft. An occult noir tale from the bowels of the ether vortex.” The track sprawls across a desert expanse of winding slide guitar and shadowy basslines, slowly adding in new simmering layers until the track swells into a cinematic orchestral space. Meanwhile, Béchard delivers his vocals like a campfire ghost story, plumbing the depths of his baritone drawl as he traces the outline of the track and video’s story.

The video’s creator, Jemimah Dean, says of the video, “Essentially starting with no briefs, in exchange for free interpretation, the video is then inspired solely by the music and lyrics. Art for art. Researching the Mojave desert legends, I found inspiration from skinwalkers and shapeshifters, and a visual narrative I wanted to conjure up with the lyrics, to make a more mystical visual, looking to make the coyote, the protagonist. Technically the video is created with both A.I. and filmed footage or film gifted to me by artists, i.e. - the pole dancer, all of this is blended. Each shot took a long time to create. As an amateur creating solely for the love of it, I experiment with multiple softwares, to teach myself new ways of working…. Journey, the music is the most important aspect of the video, it carries every visual, and again is the heart to the narrative and all that you see.”

Check out the song and video below. Luna Nocturna is out now via Bad Vibes Good Friends.