Dolittle Presents John Vanderslice, Whelan's, November 6th (1 Viewer)

[dolittlepresent]

Dolittle Presents

John Vanderslice (Dead Oceans)

& special guests Choir of Young Believers

Whelan's
Friday, November 6th

More details to follow

www.johnvanderslice.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDrE0c4RZAw
www.myspace.com/choirofyoungbelievers

 

[dolittlepresent]

Dolittle Presents...

John Vanderslice

+ special guests

Whelan’s, November 6th

Tickets €13.00 plus booking fee from WAV Box-Office (Lo-Call 1890 200 078), City Discs, www.tickets.ie, Ticketmaster outlets nationwide

Within the world of indie rock, he's carved him a niche all his own with clean but inventive production and lyrics that spend much of their time in the heads of unique characters.- Pitchfork, 7.8


A unique, if impenetrable artist who deserves a wider audience. – Q Magazine


Continuing on the success of his seventh solo album Romanian Names, released on Dead Oceans, John Vanderslice returns to Dublin to celebrate a collection of songs that have been arousing reviewers and listeners alike, with most reviews unified by the belief that this is his best work yet. If you've never dipped an ear into his world before, Romanian Names is a great place to start. Catch him live in Whelan’s on November 6th


The most noteworthy thing about John Vanderslice's new album is this: Romanian Names is the best record he's made to date. The 12 songs represent a career-defining moment, a pitch-perfect collection written and recorded with the utmost care and attention.

Vanderslice is certainly not the first artist to make such a leap several albums into a career – think Guided by Voices on Bee Thousand, Spoon's Kill the Moonlight or Of Montreal's Sunlandic Twins. Vanderslice’s newest, his first for Dead Oceans, makes that colossal step and separates itself from an already top-notch body of work.

Throughout Romanian Names, he sings with a newfound, unwavering confidence. He gets right at you with the sing-along choruses and punchy hooks of album opener "Tremble and Tear" and the poppy gem "C&O Canal." The songs know when to patiently step back with subtle gestures and knock-out atmospherics like those on display in "Forest Knolls" and "Summer Stock," and the album is glued together with the stripped-bare title track "Romanian Names" and the gorgeous Arthur Russell-esque album closer "Hard Times."

Lyrically, Vanderslice is employing an approach far less dense, less concerned with narrative and cohesion than in his past works. Instead, he's found a new tone and angle here, one that feels self-assured, natural, and unafraid. The results are some of his most singular and intriguing lyrics yet.

The process of writing Romanian Names differed from that of prior Vanderslice albums. This time, he has moved outside the normal (and by now maybe too comfortable) confines of his famed San Francisco recording studio, Tiny Telephone. He constructed a simple basement studio in his home, and wrote and recorded the elemental demos for these songs alone with simply a guitar or piano to accompany his voice. The emphasis was placed on melody and structure, putting thoughts of instrumentation and studio wizardry on hold until there was a complete and stable foundation to build upon. The songs were given time to breathe, to be re-worked and re-organized, and sometimes enough time to be thrown out entirely. Benefiting from this organic and evolutionary process, Romanian Names coheres beautifully.

This is not to say that what ended up on tape is less an aural stake-in-the-ground than past efforts. Like a storied artifact from the '70s, the tunes were subjected to sonic scrutiny by Vanderslice and longtime producer Scott Solter. As a result, Romanian Names sounds as though it were from another time, with Vanderslice and Solter's magic echoing John Cale's Paris 1919, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Bowie's Berlin-era output. Romanian Names is a symphony of sounds both subtle and lush, and as an album it provides the perfect backdrop for John Vanderslice’s deft and fully-realized songwriting.

http://www.johnvanderslice.com/
http://www.myspace.com/johnvanderslice

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies