Dan Cloutier - The Iceberg (2025)

New England-based Dan Cloutier travelled to Greenland, not to claim the land for the United States but to record his latest album. He took in Newfoundland, too, revelling in the beauty of the frozen north. The result is a record that is shaped by its surroundings. Cloutier has soaked up the air, the cold, and the local music, with its Celtic roots. Excellently played throughout, there are songs of hope to push away the darkness.

Cloutier has a long-time love affair with the tundra and the ice beyond. His previous set, “The Battle of Greenland”, was far more reflective than this joyous latest offering. It is eight years since the sombre, but beautiful collection was released, and after soaking up more of the atmospheric world, Cloutier felt ready to record again.

Most of us are metaphorical icebergs, with more going on below the surface that others cannot see than our outward personas. Cloutier reveals more of his iceberg, as fragments fall into the chilly waters below and crash in on us in waves. The opening track, called ‘The Iceberg’, begins with the line “There’s an iceberg at the end of the world / And it shines and it shimmers like gold”. The banjo playing takes the tune along, increasing in speed, giving it a feeling of an Appalachian mountain tune.

Cloutier gives a nod to Wilco’s 2004 album “A Ghost is Born”, in the second track ‘Synapses Fire’. With the lyric “From the streets in London / A ghost is born / Spiders on my headphones”. It centres around a trip to London, England, and the sights and sounds of the city. The Queen is still on the throne, and Tower Records is selling music in Piccadilly Circus. This joyous track celebrates a memorable time when the brain is “firing on all cylinders”, as the saying goes, and there is a wonder to the subject’s life and the world around them.

On ‘Windshield Wipers’, Cloutier is joined by Ricardo Barraza and Kim Jennings on harmony vocals on a song that gives you a sense of danger, and you can almost feel the rain pounding on the roof of the vehicle. Cloutier sounds desperate, frantic for the rain to wash him clean and give him a change for good. It is a rough ride, but hold on until the end, and there is a beautiful guitar coda that makes it feel like the wet weather is clearing and new light is shining through.

Cloutier returns to the sound of his previous outing with ‘I Want to Feel Your Broken Heart Beating’, in a slow and beautiful ballad of re-birth and new opportunities. Kalina Cloutier, Kim Jennings and Mike Lachance join in on harmonies, and the overall effect is exquisite.

Cloutier has a host of good ideas within his works and has managed to draw inspiration from the trip to Newfoundland and Greenland lyrically. ‘Good Kind of Failure’ is one of those that hits the right spot. We can learn much more from a failure than all the successes in the world. Cloutier is right, we need a word for that kind of failure.

If you take anything from the record, take this: there is beauty all over the world, and time for contemplation is needed now and then, possibly with Dan Cloutier on the headphones. Hot, cold in a rainstorm, take the positives and leave the darkness behind. Life is the ultimate adventure.