PAUL DUNCAN MP3: “Red Eagle”
http://www.home-tapes.com/mp3/redeagle.mp3
The Hometapes label released Above The Trees, the third album from Paul Duncan, on May 1, 2007. The album features Duncan exploring the spirit of collaboration with over eleven guest musicians ranging from members of Grizzly Bear to Tortoise. Duncan will be performing several times in New York City over the coming months.
Paul Duncan, a Texan now in Brooklyn, constructed his first two records in a homemade studio. Paul’s music has always been marked by the unique combination of traditional instruments; guitar, pedal steel, drums, banjo, strings, glockenspiel, piano, horns, etc. and confident exploration of synthesis and noise. The presence of his voice, firmly gripping language and feeling, creates the glue between these musical forces, making for tricky pop songs and
musical descriptions of memories. This was the essence of 2003’s To An Ambient Hollywood and 2005’s Be Careful What You Call Home, both released on Hometapes, both critically acclaimed, and both built from the ground up.
Above The Trees breaks rank from its two predecessors both in impetus and craftsmanship. The album, which was written in a short three months and recorded in an even shorter week, was born from the ether of experience and beauty that finds its way through the dark. Above drifts ashore as a series of removed, but reflexive short stories; clusters of pastoral, yet cosmic abstractions. Songs are broadcast like shifting entities: overcast dreams part to reveal mackerel skies as their characters become indigenous in feral, electrified terrain. What may be Paul’s most musically straightforward record yet may also be his most psychologically complex. Through a turbulent and sensual process, he takes into account the intangible the ebb and flow above the trees and translates it all through people and the instruments in their hands.
Paul traveled to Chicago to record Above The Trees with engineer Tim Iseler at Soma EMS. Something came to life during that hot week in July with the help of many old and new friends. The record features performances by Adam Wills (Rhys Chatham’s Essentialist, Bear In Heaven), Christopher Bear (Grizzly Bear), David Daniell (San Agustin, Rhys Chatham’s Essentialist), Doug McCombs (Tortoise, Brokeback), Fred Lonberg-Holm (Terminal 4, Lightbox Orchestra), Joe Stickney (Rhys Chatham’s Essentialist, Bear in Heaven), Josh Berman (Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra), Ken Champion (Jim O’Rourke), Nate Lepine (Cursive, Smog), Nate Swanson, and Tim Daisy (The Vandermark 5).
For Above The Trees, the studio became Paul’s home, and these players his visitors. The result may be the most heartfelt and sonically exciting record in Paul’s infinitely expanding catalogue of sound.
Paul Duncan – Above The Trees track list:
1. Red Eagle
2. The Fire
3. The Lake Pt. 2
4. Country Witch
5. Parasail
6. High in the Morning
7. Above the Trees
8. The Lake Pt. 1
9. The Pendulum
10. Memory Curves
PAUL DUNCAN LIVE DATES
June 02 – Brooklyn, NY Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery (38 Marcy Avenue.)
June 17 – Brooklyn, NY Glasslands
July 19 – Brooklyn, NY Luna Lounge