San Francisco’s Papercuts (aka Jason Quever) will issue its second album, Can’t Go Back on March 6 on the Gnomonsong label. Gnomonsong is owned and operated by Devendra Banhart and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic. Papercuts is only the fourth artist to be signed to the imprint, alongside labelmates Jana Hunter, Feathers and Rio En Medio. Papercuts will launch a nationwide US tour with Grizzly Bear in Seattle on Feb. 16 at Neumo’s.
Can’t Go Back is the marriage of timeless songs, richly textured studio sounds, classic rock/pop hookery, and focused narratives. Delivered through Jason’s warm voice and layered lucid melodies, these songs attempt to deal with the reality of a world beyond one’s control. Yet from the kid in “Outside Looking In” who’s best friend has gotten hip to weed and moved on to a new click, to the woman in “Dear Employee” who is forced to accept that her affair with her cruel employer has run it’s course, “and anyway you’re not the first”, the tone throughout remains surprisingly hopeful and explorative.
Before this Quever was raised in a commune in Humboldt County, orphaned, moved up and down the US West Coast before calling San Francisco home. Since breaking in through the window of a vacationing friends apartment with an 8 track to record piano tracks for Cass McCombs’ “Not The Way” in 2002, Quever has been playing with and/or recording other friends’ bands such as Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Skygreen Leopards, as well as Vetiver, and considers working intimately with such contemporary songwriters to be a significant influence, along with the standard luminous 20th century figures we all know and love.
Can’t Go Back track list:
1. Dear Employee
2. John Brown
3. Summer Long
4. Unavailable
5. Take the 227th Exit
6. Outside Looking In
7. Sandy
8. Just Another Thing to Dust
9. Found Bird
10. The World I Love
MP3: “John Brown”:
http://www.gnomonsong.com/mp3s/Papercuts-John_Brown.mp3
Bio, photos, album art at:
http://www.gnomonsong.com/papercuts/
Papercuts tour dates
all dates with Grizzly Bear
Fri 02/16 Seattle, WA Neumo’s
Sat 02/17 Vancouver, BC Plaza Club
Sun 02/18 Portland, OR Mission Theatre (2 shows)
Tue 02/20 San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall
Wed 02/21 Los Angeles, CA Troubadour
Fri 02/23 Tucson, AZ Plush
Sat 02/24 Marfa, TX Ballroom Marfa
Mon 02/26 Norman, OK Opolis
Tue 02/27 Dallas, TX Club Dada
Wed 02/28 Austin, TX Emo’s
Thu 03/01 Baton Rouge, LA Chelsea’s
Fri 03/02 Atlanta, GA Drunken Unicorn
Sat 03/03 Chapel Hill, NC Local 506
Sun 03/04 Washington DC Black Cat
Tue 03/06 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
Wed 03/07 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom