In the Cool of the Day

Daniel Martin Moore is a singer and songwriter from Cold Spring, Kentucky. On the strength of an unsolicited demo he sent Sub Pop in January of 2007, they released Stray Age in October of 2008, a quietly striking album and Daniel's debut full-length. In February of 2010 came Dear Companion, an album written and performed by Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore together, and produced by Jim James from My Morning Jacket and Monsters of Folk. Part of the intention with Dear Companion was to draw attention to the problem of Mountaintop Removal (MTR) coal mining, but the music stood on its own as well. Daniel Martin Moore's new album, In the Cool of the Day, all started with an old piano, situated in the heart of Cincinnati's WVXU studios. What had been scheduled to be a routine interview and in-studio performance turned into otherworldly inspiration when Moore sat down and plunked away at the old nine foot Steinway, once used as the main instrument by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. With the help of longtime friend and drummer Daniel Joseph Dorff, Moore has given us a "spiritual" album of time-tested, family gospel favorites remembered from growing up and reinterpreted here, with a few new tunes of his own in the same vein. And, it's a sincerely revelatory album, evoking Daniel's personal history, sense of place, love, faith (in music/art/whatever) that speaks plainly to the heart of any soul.