Album Review: Amen Dunes – “Love”

By: Jennifer Perkin – 

Damon McMahon’s story is one-in-a-million – a former New York musician residing in China when Chicago label Locust Music discovered his long-shelved solo bedroom recordings and set them for release in 2009. McMahon promptly returned to the US to tour behind his long-delayed debut and subsequently released new material and experimental recordings under the Amen Dunes pseudonym.

For McMahon, Love marks a different direction away from his previous work produced in short, cathartic bursts. Favouring a deliberate and classical approach, clarity and simplicity override the reverb-drenched sound that had associated Amen Dunes with freak-folk and psychedelic genres. The songs are coherent and structured with lingering traces of fuzz; “I Can’t Dig It” sounds like a Beatles cut, echoing back from another dimension mixing the weird and conventional in the path that Deerhunter have forged. The understated “Everybody is Crazy” is clipped at under three minutes as the faint hint of an extended wig-out fades-out.

The record also marks the cementing of the Amen Dunesband, incorporating guitarist/pianist Jordi Wheeler and drummer Parker Kindred, and featuring appearances from collaborators, most audibly saxophonist Colin Stetson (Arcade Fire, Bon Iver) and vocalist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt (Iceage). Stetson’s trademark industrial drone evokes a fantastic tension to “I Can’t Dig It”, while Rønnenfelt’s baritone performance on the sparse duet “Green Eyes” recalls the melancholic sea shanties of Nick Cave.

McMahon has dropped references points in classic soul and rhythm & blues, like Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison and Sam Cook as inspiration for the record; in sharp contrast, most of the recordings took place at the Montreal studio of members of drone-orchestra Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The record avoids any of these specific reference-points by firmly featuring McMahon’s confident voice as the prominent instrument – such as the haunting “”Spirits Are Parted”, or the country-tinged “Rocket Flare” where his urgent crooning exerts a force akin to My Morning Jacket’s Jim James.

Along its straightest edges, specifically “Lilac Hand” and “Love”, Love could be the indie record that David Gray will never make. McMahon is evidently a dynamic and experimental artist and repeated listening is required to fully embrace the ebb and flow of subtleties on Love. It may well be months before the impact of its charms reveal themselves, but it begs a bigger question of whether this material by a now-flourishing musician can persevere under the duress of time

Essential Tracks: “Spirits Are Parted”, “Green Eyes”, and “Rocket Flare”.