Formats
LMD37 - CD
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Details
THREE YEARS IN THE MAKING, MODERNSTATE'S SOPHOMORE ALBUM THE BURNING BEARD GUIDES US THROUGH ALL FACETS OF ITS CREATOR, SAM SCHAUER. RECORDED IN A LARGE ROOM OVERLOOKING PORTLAND, OREGON'S DARKEST AVENUE, BURNSIDE, THE SOUND OF A WORKING CLASS CITY EMBEDS ITSELF IN THE CONTENT OF THE RECORD. A BUS STOPS, A SIREN WAILS, THE BURNING BEARD IS A DESPERATE RECORD, A LIVING AND BREATHING TESTAMENT TO SELF-DENIAL, DETERMINATION, AND REGRET. HIS STARK MUSICAL CANDOR SURFACES WITH LYRICAL HONESTY THAT IS EASILY MIRRORED BY BROODING MELODIC DRUMS, AND UNDERSTATED GLOCKENSPIEL. AS SAM'S BARITONE JOURNEYS THROUGH THE SHARPLY TRAGIC DOOM FOLK OF THE ALBUM, THE CITY IS PERCHING ON HIS WINDOW SILL, SOMEHOW ACCOMPANYING HIS POCKET SYMPHONY AND HINTING AT THE NOTION THAT THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. A CONCEPT MAYBE, BUT AS SAM SINGS, "WE'RE ALL DESTINED TO BECOME OUR PARENTS, WE WILL LAUGH LIKE THEM, LOVE LIKE THEM, AND FUCK LIKE THEM. OH MY GOD, WE MUST BE FUCKED." WE BELIEVE HIM. SAM IS SOMEONE WHO EMBRACES THE SACRIFICES OF BEING A GENUINE ARTIST, LIVING THE LIFE HIS LYRICS CONVEY.
SAM SCHAUER: GUITAR, DRUMS, VOCALS, WURLITZER ELECTRIC PIANO, GLOCKENSPIEL, BASS, MICROPHONES. JESSE JOHNSON: GUITAR. DAVIS HOOKER: BASS, WURLITZER. BILL HOLLOWAY: DRUMS. "Modernstate is beautifully delicate and at the same time, strong with lyrical invention. Schauer's dramatic ability to tell an honest story is what carries through and keeps you. It is sure, rudder-like, balanced, and moves forward with honest human emotion. "A rather enticing album, between atmospheric pop and certain soft experimentations. Guitar buckles, of electronic microbeats, a lapsteel, a glockenspiel, a muffled voice that unveils itself in the mediums engrave, here the universe of Modernstate." -Indiepoprock.net "Modernstate is at the forefront of a burgeoning movement of one-man bands in the Pacific Northwest. With a little luck, perhaps it all will be known one day as the ?Modernstate sound.? -Sacramento News and Review "It's an odd contradiction, perhaps opposing modes of release. Clamor begets control; control begets clamor. Tranquility begets noise, and so on, and so on. In the middle is Sam Schauer. In the middle is also a shared attitude of political repulsion, exasperation and anger, a short-circuit across an aesthetic gulf. The subject matter?the "state of things," the war, the administration?remains the same throughout Schauer's output, however different the modes of artistic escape." -Willamette Week
Tracks
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Press
IT'S FOLK, BUT IT'S ALSO PUNK, EXPERIMENTAL, LO-FI ROCK, AND BLENDS ALL OF THIS INTO SOME SORT OF MUTANT CONFESSIONAL POP." -PORTLAND MERCURY "SAM BLENDS LUSH BEDS OF GUITAR LOOPS, KEYBOARD MELODIES, SAM'S STORYTELLER VOCALS, CASIO BEATS, EVEN A CHOIR OF FRIENDS. THE RESULT IS SOMETHING THAT BRINGS TO MIND THE MOODS OF AERIAL/PAPA M, THE QUIRKY EXPERIMENTALISM OF JOAN OF ARC AND THE DEADPAN DELIVERY OF LEONARD COHEN." -DCM MAGAZINE