the sunshiny daze

The Sunshiny Daze is the new recording project from Christopher Sleightholm (Snake River). Clouds Melt Away is the first album under this alter ego. With no shows to play Christopher used the time to make a straight up, true-to-life 60s psych pop record. Having forever been inspired by the relatively forgotten works of sunshine/60s psych pop this project became the perfect vehicle to write songs that are tip of the hat, and a kiss on the cheek of the blissed-out music of the flower children that fried their minds in the 1967-1968 California sun. The spirit of this era in music has always loomed large in Christopher’s work, and this record provided the chance to pay tribute to the kaleidoscopic evergreen music of that time.

Between February and April 2021 Christopher recorded seventeen songs at his home studio in Regina, Saskatchewan called Song Has No End Studio. He whittled them down to the eleven songs that make up Clouds Melt Away. The songs have various reference points from the obvious like The Zombies, to the lesser-known work of producer Curt Boettcher’s albums with The Millennium and Sagittarius as well Eternity’s Children.

“Joanie and Eno” is the first single/video from the album, and is about Christopher’s cats. Everyone loves their pets, but those who write songs about their pets love them the most. The song is a jangly The Byrds-like thing that wonders what cats dream about, and ponders such deep questions as what makes kitties so soft, and why are their noses so pink.