Brooklyn indie rock artist Joshua Ackley (ex-The Dead Betties, Teen Vice) who is releasing his debut album, Dark Arts on August 21st. Ackley wrote and recorded Dark Arts following a major skiing accident in late 2018, Ackley’s injuries required a surgery which left him home bound for 4 months. During this time, he converted his home into a makeshift recording studio, recording his first proper solo album. Ahead of the album’s release, he has shared the timely and poignant single “Black River Red Cloud.”

Ackley was born in South Carolina, and raised on a farm in rural New Mexico, he moved to NYC at the age of 19 to pursue music and escape homophobia. He’s been on the music scene ever since – as the bassist and frontman of NYC art-punk band The Dead Betties & co-leader of rock band, Teen Vice, with the legendary Tammy Hart. In addition to being passionate about music, Ackley has been an advocate for woman and minorities in his professional life. While serving as Vice President of Communications for Girl Scouts of the USA for 10 years, he became the center of attacks from conservative journalists including Breitbart.com, Bill O’Reilly, & The Daily Mail who alleged he was contributing to the leftist and homosexual indoctrination of children (the “gay agenda”). Despite the controversy, Ackley stayed at Girl Scouts until 2019.

Ackley wrote and recorded Dark Arts following a major skiing accident in late 2018, Ackley’s injuries required a surgery which left him home bound for 4 months. During this time, he converted his home into a makeshift recording studio, recording his first proper solo album.

From Joshua Ackley:

“I grew up openly gay right on the border of the Navajo reservation, in a red oil town in northwestern New Mexico. The open and rampant racism toward the Navajo people is so embedded in that community, it saturates and poisons everything it touches. Despite this, Navajo kids were always the first to come to my defense when I faced extreme bullying growing up. While there’s no apology good enough for what white people have done to Native Americans since stealing their lands, we have to acknowledge what we’ve done, and admit that it is still happening, right in front of us. I wanted this song to sound like sitting alone on top of a plateau in the high desert, wind cutting into sandstone.”