Damon McMahon's Amen Dunes project is coming to an end. He has released one last album, Jokes of death IItoday, removing songs from the recent album Death jokes produced by Craig Silvey. Check it out below, via Sub Pop.
“This is the final chapter of the final volume,” McMahon said in press materials. “Good-bye, I hardly said a word to you, but it's always like that at parties—we never see each other, we never say the things we want to. in fact it is the same everywhere in this life. Let's hope that when we die things will be better arranged.''
McMahon formed Amen Dunes in 2006, releasing an album of 8-track recordings, DIAwho put his instincts as a pop melodist into a cold, alienated production style that came from his creation in a cabin in the Catskills. His status rose after he signed to Sacred Bones, the Brooklyn record label of which he became a lodestar.
He released a string of cult favorites for the label, starting out Through the donkey before 2014 Love—a dreamy indie-pop album featuring members of Iceage and Godspeed You! Black Emperor — and Freedomthe record that crystallized McMahon's songwriting and elevated Amen Dunes beyond its roots as a reliquary of underground curiosities. He signed to Sub Pop and, this March, released his swan song of four years, Death jokesan album that expanded the Amen Dunes style to incorporate the sounds of his beloved electronic and hip-hop music. The remix disc features additional contributions from Panorama, Kwake Bass, Christoffer Berg and Robbie Lee.
“Death jokes it was more than I can sum up,” McMahon told Pitchfork. “The most I can say is that the songs have little to do with actual death, and more to do with the death of your inner self.”
