ADAM GNADE
The genre "talking-songs" is Adam Gnade's (guh-nah-dee)
attempt to soundtrack "how America feels." Based
around prose writing (not poetry or spoken word) the Portland-based
vocalist/banjo-player brings in elements of noise, country,
mountain music, and work songs. His albums and stories (his
first novel is out this Xmas on Dutchmoney Books) intersect,
sharing characters, creating a universe of "lives and
backstories."
In the past two years since he began "doing this officially,"
US and UK tours have gone down alongside friends Youthmovies,
Jonquil, Eugene McGuinness, Blanket, and House of Brothers.
Live, sometimes it's Adam with a banjo or five-string acoustic
guitar standing in the middle of the crowd, "hollering";
sometimes a full band psyche-out (including regular collaborator
Thaddeus Christian.) This fall saw the release of the Honey
Slides EP, a collaboration with Youthmovies.
Honey Slides was written on tour in England, improv'd during
drunken collaborative sets, and recorded on a chilly, grey
day at Oxfordshire's Warehouse Studios while a bottle of murky
port was passed around the room. A full-on culture clash,
the music is like an American marching band playing a British
rave. Thumping micro-house morphs into a psychedelic brass
band while landscapes of android ghost beats emerge from luminous
pools of ambient noise. The vocals shout and proclaim in surreal
tones like the spooky hollers of a Southern Baptist preacher
inside a swampland chapel. Ideas and images cycle back, flashing
brief visions of haunted wilderness, rising seas, decadent
youth, faith healers, urban decay, and midnight carnivals
in torch-lit clearings. A new animal born to two mothers,
an engaging, weird, dancy, absorbing, freaked-out electronic
pop tapestry.
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