In the fall of 2014, Justin Lacy purchased his first home, a small fixer-upper near the port in Wilmington, NC. Soon after, his longtime relationship crumbled, and Lacy began tearing down walls. The construction was isolating, but cathartic, and after the dust settled, a new body of music slowly emerged, chronicling new growth in the wake of wreckage. That year, Lacy also received a grant from the Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County to create “Control Burn,” his second full-length album. “Control Burn” - wiped free of plaster and wood dust - is finally ready to see the light of day, and will be released April 2017. With a bright, child-like ensemble of synthesizers, glockenspiels and celestas fashioned around Lacy’s virtuosic nylon-string guitar, quirky voice and imaginative yet vulnerable lyrics, the album is at-times dark, but ultimately optimistic. “It’s instrumentally intricate, and delicate and sweet, like rock candy clouds,” says Wilmington artist and friend Jonathan Guggenheim. “It feels like a break-up album that pieced itself back together with bubble gum and baby bird eggs.” Born in 1989, Lacy moved to Wilmington in 2007 to study music and English at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Since then, he’s created 3 EPs, 2 albums and 2 film scores. In 2010, he began performing regionally with The Swimming Machine, a nine-piece folk outfit utilizing all manner of odd instrumentation, and in 2012, he released his debut full-length album, “Overgrown,” an album that, according to Encore Magazine, “frolics and bows, flits and exaggerates, whispers and screams.” Not your typical singer-songwriter, Lacy is equal parts lyricist, arranger, composer and performer. His oddball vocal delivery of image-heavy lines, steeped in sweeping orchestral arrangements has earned him comparisons to the likes of Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits.