JUNO Award-winning and Platinum-selling artist Jay Malinowski, best known as one half of Bedouin Soundclash, returns under his solo moniker MALINOWSKI to announce ‘Under A Landslide of Stars’, his first solo album in over a decade. The album arrives March 13 via Dine Alone Records. Alongside the announcement, MALINOWSKI shares new single “Holy Guns”, available now across all digital streaming platforms.
Malinowski offers context for the new single: “There are no holy guns. There are guns of protection, there are guns of revenge, there are guns of greed, there are guns of hate, but there are no holy guns. Holy Guns is an oxymoron.” Written from the perspective of a soul slipping between faith and fanaticism, “Holy Guns” follows a voice who has been rejected and is teetering on the edge of revelation and ruin. As the chorus hits, a 150-person choir chants: guns for each and everyone, let’s shoot ourselves to heaven, like a bullet in the sun. What begins as exaltation of one becomes the bloodlust of the group.
Malinowski recalls, “I can understand the lone soul who turns radical, but a congregation, bound by faith, who enact their devotion through violence is wild. And to further believe that God reserves a special place in heaven for such acts is a plot torn from the pages of Camus.” “Holy Guns” became the heartbeat of ‘Under A Landslide of Stars’, an exploration of love stretched from the intimate to the infinite. Malinowski explains: “The album is about love and devotion. I was writing about the deep love I have for my wife Steph and my son Finn, and then juxtaposing that against pseudo-fanatical characters I conjured up in my mind that are expressing love for their god or gods in impossibly twisted and violent ways.”
Recorded at the legendary Armoury Studios in Vancouver and mixed in Los Angeles by Davey Badiuk, ‘Under A Landslide of Stars’ features choirs across the continent, from gospel singers in New Orleans featuring the work of Rick Nelson and Clint Maedgen of Preservation Hall Jazz Band, to a 150-person community choir recorded live in a church in Victoria, British Columbia. The album traces the thread of love as it unfurls, stretching outward in ever-widening circles until its expression inverts. Yet rather than sinking into nihilism or drifting into detachment, the album turns its gaze toward redemption, a return to the sacredness found in the smallest gestures and the intimate authenticity of the love for those around you. Malinowski shares, “We live in wild times. Sometimes I forget the stars above, how immaterial and small it all is under that landslide of stars.”