In the the midst of Covid-19, Blake still managed to sneak a song out into the world. The brooding ballad was added straight out of the gates to ABC Country, Kix Country and Australian Country Radio after its release on April 27th. Today, the music video follows. ‘I wasn’t initially going do to a clip because of social restrictions,’ says Dantier, ‘but we decided last minute to pull together a small crew. We had a general idea in mind about how the clip would look, but decided exactly what spots to shoot in on the day.’

The video was directed by Bruce Dawson and shot by Lawrence Lim – both from Tribal Apes – in and around their studio at Fox Studios. ‘Bruce showed us some spots that he thought would look cool,’ says Dantier, ‘and he threw it to me and Cass [Hopetoun] to pick the final list.’

The end result is a dark, moody clip that does justice to the lyrics, which were inspired after Dantier’s family friend passed away from cancer. Dantier says that the lyrics just poured out, while Good Call Live described ‘Ash & Dust’ as taking ‘my breath away with the pure emotion felt upon listening,’ and ‘a song with so much heart, it brought tears to my eyes.’

The video caps off what has been a relatively active week for the alt-country songwriter – after he appeared alongside Cass Hopetoun at Australia’s first live drive-in concert. The event, hosted by Drive-In Entertainment Australia (https://www.facebook.com/driveinentertainment/), featured Blake and Cass opening up the show with a short acoustic set before Casey Donovan took the stage with her band. Mick Radojkovic of “The Music” wrote:

“The drizzling rain and grey sky would normally make for a cold, dirty and wet concert-going experience, but as the opening act, Cass Hopetoun and Blake Dantier began, we were tucked away in our cars, the windscreens fogging up the more we sang along.

Their set of country-inspired originals will go down in history, along with the first crowd participation using car horns in a cover of Dragon’s April Sun In Cuba. 

A full stage set-up was built for the gig, including a decent sound system, meaning – if you were close enough – you could roll down the windows on your car and hear it or chose to turn up your stereo, tuning in to a specific frequency just for the show.”

The duo also appeared on channel 7’s Sunrise to promote the event.