New York’s Damon McMahon has announced his first Amen Dunes album in six years. The new album, Death Jokes, it arrives May 10 via Sub Pop, marking Amen Dunes’ debut full-length on the storied Seattle label. Today, McMahon has released lead single “Purple Land,” along with a music video directed by Julian Klincewicz. Check it out below, along with Amen Dunes’ upcoming concert dates.
Death Jokes follows Amen Dunes’ excellent 2018 full-length, Freedom. In 2021, McMahon signed to Sub Pop and shared the one-off single “Feel Nothing,” featuring Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods. The track, which was co-produced by Ariel Rechtshaid, does not appear on Death Jokes.
Between releasing Freedom and preparing the 14 songs on Death Jokes, McMahon dealt with an intense bout of COVID-19, welcomed his first child, and relocated from Los Angeles to Woodstock, New York. While recording the new LP, he enlisted bassist Sam Wilkes, as well producers Christoffer Berg Kwake Bass, Panoram, and Money Mark to contribute to select tracks.
Discussing the new album’s lead single, McMahon said in a press statement, “‘Purple Land’ is one of the album’s interstitial character portraits: first of a child, then the narrator, and then of an empowered figure as they all navigate and find liberation from the disconnection and disenchantment of an uncertain world.”
He continued: “It begins first as a song to my daughter about life on earth, offering platitudes, warnings, and guidance through its various stages, until it becomes a reflection on the narrator’s own uncertainties as he moves through the world, ending finally with a character Rhea Anne who exemplifies liberation from it all in a moment of simple reckless freedom, as the beat drops in the final minute of the song.”
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Death Jokes:
01 Death Jokes
02 Ian
03 Joyrider
04 What I Want
05 Rugby Child
06 Boys
07 Exodus
08 Predator
09 Solo Tape
10 Purple Land
11 I Don’t Mind
12 Mary Anne
13 Round the World
14 Poor Cops
Amen Dunes:
05-08 San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
05-10 Los Angeles, CA – The Bellwether
05-15 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
07-01 Paris, France – Trabendo
07-03 Berlin, Germany – Gretchen
07-05 Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival
07-07 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso
07-09 London, England – Koko
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