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The Dave Howard Singularity
Dark and for Boating
Smash - 2023
Michael Panontin
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"I love the Ace Tone but I'm not as drawn to it anymore. I'm just seeing other sounds as well. It's an open relationship we have you see."
Dave Howard and that Ace Tone organ were the wonder couple of the Ontario indie scene back in the early to mid-eighties. On the strength of a couple of early cassette-only releases, the Dave Howard Singers, as he cheekily dubbed his solo act back then, packed the bars and clubs with a retro-futurist sound that was totally unique. In Windsor ON, where I was living at the time, he was a veritable phenomenon, and songs like 'They Come, They Go' and 'Road Warrior' were huge hits in the local underground scene.
Howard would spend nearly a decade in England working with the likes of the Stranglers' J.J. Burnell and Magazine's Dave Formula. He did well, releasing a number of records and even garnering a bona fide indie hit with his 1987 single 'Yon Yonson'. But it was a tough slog and he has long since come back to Toronto.
"In early '91 the indie record industry imploded and overnight half the labels were bankrupt," he recently told CM. "I started realizing that I had missed out on sizeable portions of life by attempting to achieve recognition in the UK and Europe. And while I had a blast doing it, its single-mindedness was restrictive in many ways."
Fast forward to the present and Howard has a new record, Dark and for Boating, his first in over three decades. His beloved Ace Tone has been temporarily swapped for the lush electronic sounds of Reason home studio software, and the Dave Howard Singers name has been updated to the Dave Howard Singularity.
"I had decided to return home to live some life without chasing my tail. I now for the first time in my life actually feel as though I have some things to say because I lived a life that I can actually draw from. Lately my work has been more of a personal nature. The Ace Tone is a great instrument, but I'm trying to make a distinction here with the slightly different name too."
Dark and for Boating is thus a clear departure for Howard. That surly snarl has softened to a silky croon reminiscent of 90s-era lounge lizard Mike Flowers, though without the latter's ironic shtick, of course. And much of the album is embossed with background choral voices, which are - sometimes at different times and sometimes at the same time - light and ethereal and...well...dark and foreboding. Some songs, the lovely 'More Than Anything' for instance, hint at Bacharach and David, though staring into a rear view mirror from later in life. Others are much more intense, especially 'Time Taking Its Time', probably the record's strongest track with its powerful kettle drums adding just the right amount of levity.
Dark and for Boating is a pretty swell return to form for Dave Howard, and it will no doubt net him a new legion of fans (while inevitably leaving others behind). But even they can take comfort; Howard has not abandoned them. "The Dave Howard Singers is and mostly will be strictly Ace Tone, beatboxes and me, voice. For this collection I chose to step away from the Ace Tone but there are tracks pegged for future albums where it's included."
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