artist: Boduf Songs
title: This Alone Above All Else In Spite Of Everything
catalog#: krank144
formats available: LP/Digital
release date: September 6, 2010
content:
The fourth Boduf Songs extended play was created using Mathew Sweet's standard recording set up of a single microphone and a small array of instruments, but it comes with a few surprises - most notably the prominence of electric guitar, bass and stomping drums on a few tracks. All of the elements that make his previous sound creations so arresting are still present; the impeccable song structures, the minimal approach, the delicate yet dominant singing. The album opens with the naked sound of the hammers of an old upright piano striking strings, an apt metaphor for the lyrical content which is just as raw and exposed. Mathew broadens his vocal approach here, exploring range and employing some unpredictable, well-placed harmonies. This Alone Above All Else In Spite Of Everything is effectively a concept record, and makes for a dramatic journey. Mat states "There is a theme that runs through each song and the track order is paramount to that - it's a hugely important part of making a record work." So pay attention.
track listing:
1. Bought Myself A Cat O’Nine 2. Decapitation Blues 3. Absolutely Null And Utterly Void
4. I Have Decided To Pass Through Matter 5. Green They Were, And Golden Eyed
6. We Get on Slowly 7. The Giant Umbilical Cord That Connects Your Brain to the Centre of the Universe 8. I Am Going Away And I Am Never Coming Back
selected discography:
Boduf Songs 2005 kranky
Lion Devours the Sun 2006 kranky
How Shadows Chase the Balance 2008 kranky
press quotes for How Shadows Change the Balance:
"How Shadows Chase the Balance is among the most spiritually and psychologically devastating albums I've ever heard, but it's also a simple album about living life, about our peculiar position in the universe and the candid exploration of the impact those experiences have on all of us. It's also, by a large margin, one of the strongest albums I've heard this year." Tiny Mix Tapes
"...crawling folk songs drenched in a stew of fire, brimstone and, of course, blood. Yes, How Shadows Chase the Balance is in love with the gloom but rarely does despair sound this sweet." Exclaim
“How Shadows Chase the Balance is often so suffocatingly bleak that its anger and despair rarely rise above a faint but insistent ghostly presence, like the beating of a tell-tale heart. Unsettling and gorgeous..." All Music Guide
"In Boduf Songs' brutal theology, darkness devours light, death defeats the living, and nature and culture are at perpetual fisticuffs." Pitchfork
"Boduf Songs makes some of the duskiest, autumnal and beautiful loner psychedelia." Stereogum
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