Diesel – Let It Fly @ Calamvale Hotel

World, meet Diesel.

 

After 25 years in rock n roll, the artist otherwise known as Mark Lizotte has delivered an album that melds together all the varied sides of his musical personality (and reveals a few new ones).

 

World, meet Let It Fly.

 

“It’s all of my life’s work so far brought to fruition, in many ways. It’s pretty encompassing,” says Diesel. “There’s a lot of stuff I’ve never tried before either – like, there are folk elements that are quite different for me … I guess when you start using mandolin and fiddle, it’s gonna happen!”

 

Let It Fly is his eleventh album, give or take, and his first studio set of originals since 2008. The album “started out as a bit of a hodge-podge” –

 

“I thought, while I’ve got a bit of a flow happening, just get back in there quick and put a few things down. For some of the songs, it’s been two years since we recorded them – they were put in the back of the bottom drawer. It was quite a different process, but we got there in the end.”

 

Diesel’s multi-tasking reaches new heights on Let It Fly – while Lee Moloney takes care of the drums, Diesel sings, plays guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, 808 drum machines … “Basically everything that’s not the fiddle, which Tim Chaisson played, and anything that sounds like a female singer, that’s Lila Gold, my daughter.”

 

Over the simple soul and memorable melodies of ‘If You Let Me Give’, 18-year-old Lila duets with her father. “It’s like capturing an exotic animal, it’s very hard to get your hands on and you don’t wanna scare it,” Diesel laughs. “I just threw it out there at the very end, I didn’t put it to her as a duet, I just said, ‘I need some vocals’. I wasn’t sure if she even wanted to sing with me, but she was right into it.”  

 

There is so much more to be found within Let it Fly.