Damien Jurado
Folk / Undefined
It Started with kids jumping on a trampoline, purple monsters and a spaced-out mom. But, it was't before angels were turning backs on their lovers, leaving Dear John letters on the door as they walked. Cops' wives cheating but faithfully denying. Old lives passing without the simplest of hello. In the end: to bed with a hand gun.
Damien Jurado is an urban-folk singer with his hand in the baskets of all the right fringe generes. He's a storyteller, and the stories have matured steadily since he first appeared on the scene with the perfect balance of lighthearted pop and saddest of sad on his early singles and first full-length, Waters Ave S. Since then, he's moved more toward the dark, and if you ask him, he'll tell you point blank that it's in the dark where you'll find us all.
The brilliant home-recorded and stripped-down EP Gathered in Song (Made in Mexico) and last year's critically accalimed Rehearsals for Departure carry the heroes of Damien's tales to the very end, to the leaving of something or someone behind. His folk sensibility in full form, Damien gained a new found respect among his peers. These were songs about people any one of us have passed on the street, lived next door to, married, divorced, hated or loved.
His follow-up release from earlier this year, Postcards and Audio Letters (ChapelleTNI/Made in Mexico), is a full length album of recovered cassette tapes containing audio love letters, telephone conversations, answering machine messages and boom box christmas recordings. There's no music.....
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