You probably already know Duncan as a founding member of Maximo Park, but here he brings us a rather wonderful collection of his solo work: Beautifully understated, melodic pop songs.
More about the album from Duncan...
'Early last year in that strange sort of limbo of a time, I was releasing songs on Bandcamp as & when I’d finished messing around with them. It was kind of therapeutic to work as a musician in a more spontaneous way, no deadline or pressure other than to create songs that were a standard I was happy with and as a reaction to whatever was happening at that point. I started to build an album of these songs with no planned finishing point, making music to escape the strange days. Around the same time I received a message from Tom at Reveal Records asking if I’d like to release a compilation of my solo work. I already knew of Reveal Records as it is based back in my home town of Derby but even though we had lost touch over the years, I remembered Tom had been an enthusiastic early supporter of Maximo Park (we played a couple of in store sessions at his record shop around our first two albums). In fact our paths had crossed way before that even because I used to go into his shop as a young kid in the 90’s (saving up my pennies to buy records by Sonic Youth and Pixies and U.S. import Lemonheads t shirts). That all informed my path to becoming a musician so it feels fitting & fortunate that things have come full circle & we are now working together.
After going through the songs, we came up with, Green Grows Devotion. A collection of selected songs written & recorded all over the place and spanning nearly 12 years of writing.
The collection travels through a mixture of styles, veering from spacey experimental ideas to quieter acoustic songs, one, “Cathedral Doors”, was written shortly after I lost my Dad & pushed me further to explore my own self sufficiency and sound, from the rawer punk spirited to the sparser & psychedelic ones.
The recordings vary from lo-fi home recordings to full band recordings done in rehearsals spaces with a handful of microphones. Some of the songs are from short run albums I’ve released myself, some are unreleased & some are from EPs or singles I’ve put out leading right back to 2010 when I started. It's been exciting to hear them come out of the dark & cathartic to sequence them all like this on the new album.
Hope you enjoy listening.
More about the album from Duncan...
'Early last year in that strange sort of limbo of a time, I was releasing songs on Bandcamp as & when I’d finished messing around with them. It was kind of therapeutic to work as a musician in a more spontaneous way, no deadline or pressure other than to create songs that were a standard I was happy with and as a reaction to whatever was happening at that point. I started to build an album of these songs with no planned finishing point, making music to escape the strange days. Around the same time I received a message from Tom at Reveal Records asking if I’d like to release a compilation of my solo work. I already knew of Reveal Records as it is based back in my home town of Derby but even though we had lost touch over the years, I remembered Tom had been an enthusiastic early supporter of Maximo Park (we played a couple of in store sessions at his record shop around our first two albums). In fact our paths had crossed way before that even because I used to go into his shop as a young kid in the 90’s (saving up my pennies to buy records by Sonic Youth and Pixies and U.S. import Lemonheads t shirts). That all informed my path to becoming a musician so it feels fitting & fortunate that things have come full circle & we are now working together.
After going through the songs, we came up with, Green Grows Devotion. A collection of selected songs written & recorded all over the place and spanning nearly 12 years of writing.
The collection travels through a mixture of styles, veering from spacey experimental ideas to quieter acoustic songs, one, “Cathedral Doors”, was written shortly after I lost my Dad & pushed me further to explore my own self sufficiency and sound, from the rawer punk spirited to the sparser & psychedelic ones.
The recordings vary from lo-fi home recordings to full band recordings done in rehearsals spaces with a handful of microphones. Some of the songs are from short run albums I’ve released myself, some are unreleased & some are from EPs or singles I’ve put out leading right back to 2010 when I started. It's been exciting to hear them come out of the dark & cathartic to sequence them all like this on the new album.
Hope you enjoy listening.
TRACK LISTING
Branca Drive
Heads Of The Bastille
Red Moon
Freak Facade
Dear O
Cathedral Doors (Transit IV)
Historic Elements
Impossible To Define
Outside Notion (Featuring Sarah Suri)
Sam (Demo #2)
Filler In The Bodywork
A Chime