Vancouver-based drag artist Dust Cwaine releases debut album Arcana
The album touches on themes of nostalgia, not feeling good enough, and happy childhood memories
Dust Cwaine, a non-binary, pansexual, aromantic, multidisciplinary Vancouver-based drag artist has released their debut album, Arcana — a project in the making since 2020. Arcana is a pop rock album with inspirations from the 1990s and the early 2000s alternative rock music scene.
Cwaine has always been connected to music at a young age. Often listening to genres like pop, rock, country, and artists like Lady Gaga, The Smashing Pumpkins, Third Eye Blind, and The Chicks, who they have been a fan of since they were seven years old.
Cwaine says when they look back at the songs they loved listening to growing up, they realize how much it defined their “otherness.”
“My otherness came from also being an emotional human being my whole life and not really fitting in well with my family. One of the things that alt rock from the 1990s and early 2000s did well was speak to emotions,” they say.
Cwaine’s journey with creating Arcana was not all smooth sailing. They’ve been a drag artist for five years, often telling friends about how they wanted to make music. During the first pandemic lockdown, Cwaine was reminded by a friend about their plan to make music and from there they created a small recording studio in their closet and began creating lyrics and melodies.
After the passing of their father, Cwaine made a serious attempt at creating and releasing music. The creation of Arcana began through an Instagram connection with Josh Eastman, producer and founder of Helm Studios.
Cwaine says the beginning of the Arcana album was created from the grief they felt from their father’s passing, and they didn’t do any song writing in the six months leading up to their father’s memorial. But after they scattered their father’s ashes, they began writing and presented what they had so far to Eastman.
“I remember Josh was like, ‘This is incredible, this is so fun, this is so unique’ and that is what became innuendo and aliens in L.A.,” they say.
From then on, Cwaine says the Arcana project became a routine of writing something, presenting it for feedback and finding ways to make it better. This back and forth routine built Arcana into what Cwaine calls a “concept album.”
“I based it on a journey, I based it on a descent into darkness. A descent into a dark period in your life and then what it takes to look at all the things in your life that are challenging,” they say.
Cwaine says the songs on Arcana touch on different things, from feeling like you’re not good enough, nostalgia, being fat, to holding onto the good memories of childhood.
Listeners will start their journey of the nine song album with Arcana and end with Unicorn river Child, purposely formatted this way because Cwaine wanted to start and end the album with something honest.
“I want people to know the artist behind the music. I wanted a song that I wrote for me that other people could hear and understand who I was, and that could also stand as a reminder for who I am and how I perceive myself,” they say.
While Cwaine says both songs are honest, Unicorn River Child is more “personal and biographical.”
“There’s songs on the album that capture my silliness and my aloofness. And then there’s songs on the album that capture my emotional tenacity and emotional gravatars, and I’m really proud of it,” they say.
“If I ever get to do anything again, I’ll be grateful because whatever comes next I’ll be able to take all these skills that I have, and these ideas that I have, and create something new. I feel like Arcana was — and is — a very personal album and I wrote most of it for myself,” they said.
