Amen Dunes

I had a pretty big week at Dusted, three reviews, including this one of the drony, folky, Velvet Underground evoking Amen Dunes, whose album Through Donkey Jaw is out now on Sacred Bones.

Again, I'm just going to give you my favorite paragraph.

"The main thing with Through Donkey Jaw is texture, a haunting, indeterminate mesh of sounds — usually electric guitar, sometimes keyboards, often shaken percussion — that coalesces around a dreaming, haunted mood. The primary colors vary — 'Not a Slave' is 'Venus In Furs' style Velvetiana, 'Lower Mind' evokes acoustic Kurt Vile, 'Baba Yaga,' the folkier elements of Michael Yonkers — but they are all smudged and strung out and attenuated to the point of dissolution. Even the more abrasive outings, nightmarish 'Jill,' endless, static 'For All,' are falling apart as you look at them. Decay is not just part of the sound. It is the sound. This is a boy in his bedroom fighting against entropy, dropping fragile observations about love into the roar of an abyss."

The rest of the review.

Amen Dunes - Christopher by sacredbones

In other, far less cool and acceptable news, I was listening to an NPR report on the demise of R.E.M. and decided that I just had to hear those songs again, so I have loaded Murmur, Green and Automatic for the People onto the iTunes. Because of my own OCD mental illness tendencies, that means I will have to listen to all of them at least three and preferably four times over the next couple of weeks, so expect to see the last.fm tilt noticeably towards Athens. Weirdly, my husband and Bill Barry were almost exact lookalikes roundabout Murmur, so looking at the photos in the expanded reissue are kind of like looking at the guy I decided to marry, all those years ago. No idea if they still look the same.

Also, I'm going to Chicago for the weekend and will probably not be around to post and/or respond to comments. (though who knows, I'll have an iPod touch with me and I do get bored....)

So have a good weekend and go Northwestern!