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Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Tonight! Tonight in Music: Father John Misty and Amen Dunes

Posted by Lex Chase on Tue, May 8, 2012 at 12:02 PM

FATHER JOHN MISTY, HAR MAR SUPERSTAR
(Doug Fir, 830 E Burnside) Read our article on Father John Misty.

AMEN DUNES, PRESCRIPTION PILLS,
DJ YETI
(Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) It's hard to identify which element of Brooklyn-based Amen Dune's music is more arresting. There's the plaintive reverberations of electric guitar that veer from pleasing melody to clamoring distortion, achieving an eerily affecting personification; then there's bandleader Damon McMahon's unique vocal yawp, which oscillates through a range of tone and expression, ringing in aching clarity with alternately strangled sweetness and unsettling edge. On recordings such as last year's Through Donkey Jaw (on Sacred Bones Records), the combined elements blur across a spectrum of the manmade and organic, culminating in an alchemy of human sentiment and aural rumination that is both discombobulating and sublime. In live performance, subtle, mallet-led percussion augments the songs and buzzing digital instrumentation, giving body to McMahon's haunting song-skeletons. MARANDA BISH