ALBUM ‘LOVE’ OUT MAY 12TH
SUMMER TOUR DATES INCL. SUPPORT FOR MAC DE MARCO & WOODEN SHJIPS
Just off a tour supporting Mac DeMarco and in the midst of a run with Thee Silver Mt. Zion, Damon McMahon’s Amen Dunes offers an entirely different vibe present on forthcoming album, Love, with new song ‘I Can’t Dig It.’ This follows previously shared tracks, ‘Lonely Richard’ and ‘Lilac In Hand’ from the forthcoming LP out May 12th via Sacred Bones.
Featuring Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Efrim Menuck (lead guitar) and Colin Stetson (sax) alongside Parker Kindred (drums, percussion) and Damon (piano, synths, rhythm guitar, vocals) who wrote the song in China, ‘I Can’t Dig It’ celebrates all the good ways of failing.
“Black sheep living, celebrating the goodness of being no good.
Failing at coping, loving, etc. - lazy beneath the banyan and doing just fine.
We suffocate when dreaming and wash away when we rise, bye bye loving, there's no use in trying.
The songs about loving the sh*t out of all the above.
Glory days for the poor son.”
-- Damon McMahon
Amen Dunes, the project of New York-based Damon McMahon, is set to release his third full-length album ‘Love’ on March 12th via Sacred Bones. The upcoming album is inarguably McMahon’s most focused and ambitious work yet. Amen Dunes has always been rooted in traditional song and sound, but ‘Love’ is his first work in which this so clearly shines through. The guiding influence of Astral Weeks, Sam Cooke, Tim Hardin, Marvin Gaye, Hector Lavoe, and the cosmic non-verbal mediations of Leon Thomas, all kept vigil over the songwriting of Love, and the spirit of late 60’s/early 70’s spiritual jazz of Pharaoh Sanders and Alice Coltrane channeled the sound. These are elemental songs about time, love and memory, as much about the listener as they are about the writer: pure, open, and beautiful.
Amen Dunes was born out of a collection of songs made in the autumn of 2006 in upstate New York. They were originally personal recordings not intended for release, but after moving to China for a while, the tapes were released to unexpected critical acclaim back in New York. The intimate sentiment shines through on the new album more so than any previous release, and the result is simply the most substantial Amen Dunes record to date.
See Amen Dunes Live:
19th May - The Old Market ( w/Mac de Marco), Brighton UK
21th May - Sound Control (w/ Mac de Marco), Manchester UK
22th May - Koko (w/Mac de Marco), London UK
23rd May - OT301, Amsterdam, NL
24th May - Espace B, Paris, FR
28th May - Westgermany , Berlin, DE
29th May - Trix, Antwerp BE
30th May - Salle Rogier Brussels, BE
3rd June - Electric Ballroom (w/ Wooden Shjips), London UK
31st July - OFF Festival Poland, PL
08th Aug - Way Out West Festival Sweden, SE
15th Aug - Jabberwocky Festival, London UK
27th Sept - Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia UK