I've just finished reading Thoreau's 'Walden: Or, Life in the Woods' and came across an mp3 in my iTunes by Amen Dunes that I don't remember downloading. It turned out to be 'By the Bridal', a wonky 5minute psychedlic acoustic-based track not to far from something off a Syd Barrett or Skip Spence album.
You've heard the story before, but there's just something about the idea of a lone man out there in the woods that never gets boring to me. Whether it's Thoreau, Dick Proenneke or Bon Iver, I always seem to be sucked into their world. I've managed to listen to a few other tracks off the album and from what reviews I've read the album is split in two halves. The first contains "reverb-drenched melting psychedelia," and on the second half "he breaks into some incredible acoustic gems that will have you convinced this is some long lost record from the late 60's." (ongakubaka)."A lot of crazy shit can happen to a man when he goes solitary in a ramshackle Catskill Mountain home for an extended stretch of time-especially for a city kind of guy. But if Amen Dunes's 12 tracker Dia is one possible outcome of the guy alone-in-a-cabin- story, then a little tape saturated brain frying is something we should all live comfortably with because this is a batch of seriously raw & inspired loner psych grit that owes a debt to the diy soundz of the George Brigman s of the world.
That was 2006. These days the lone wolf behind Amen Dunes -Damon McMahon calls a small two room apartment overlooking the Temple of Earth in North-Central Beijing home, where he watches old men fly kites and sing opera every morning. Who knows what'll come out of that." Locust Music
Amen Dunes - Amen Dunes
*MP3s courtesy of The Decibel Tolls
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