Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son
Damien is out of his goddamn mind. This isn’t a recent development, but it’s an important aspect of his work that often goes ignored. In place of this key element is the idea that his music is a sober and in-depth excavation of the American landscape and rural psyche. Well, folks, I’m sorry, but it’s not. In other words: there is no railway station east of Ohio. Abandoned motels, barren highways, magazine killers, Chevrolets backing out of driveways in the middle of the night, wedding photos, intoxicated hands, bleary-eyed circus clowns, barstool salvation, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it: “America”. We’d all like to live there, but we don’t. No one does. We’re stuck with Jamba Juice and the internet, occasionally a charming, aesthetically pleasing dilapidated monument of the pre-Air Conditioned Nightmare on the side of the road. For a minute we can marvel and say “Wow, there’s nothing out here!” Nothing except a huge fucking interstate freeway and a massive telecommunication network on which we can Instagram bucolic isolation. Out there is nowhere, but inside is endless You know what else they have a lot of in “America”? Religion. Don’t leave out that old-time relijun or your souflee of polite, revisionist, fantasy America is going to fall flat at the foot of the Cross. When “folk” comes up in their iTunes genre column, them lily-white champions of gravel-voiced, hard-won-wisdom-shilling, Millennial old-timin’™ expect some goddamn symbolic imagery, man! Not actual faith per se, I mean, c’mon now, what are you: fucking insane? Damien Jurado is every character in every Damien Jurado song. He is the gun, the purple anteater, the paper wings, the avalanche, the air show disaster, Ohio, the ghost of his best friend’s wife. It is a universe unto its own, with it’s own symbolism, creation myth, and liturgy. You might go as far as to call it a religion, and your religion is a character in his religion. Level with me. You're reading this because of Damien Jurado’s new album, 'Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son' (produced by Richard Swift). You are a progressive minded, left-leaning person who in parlor-style conversation regarding the globo-political ramifications of Sky Person relationships laughs knowingly so as not to be judgmental and very reasonably concedes “Well, I don’t believe He’s some old man with a beard sitting up in the clouds” at which point everyone agrees on [insert benign middle-ground] and moves on. Consider this: What if the only way to understand a religion is to create your own? Who is this Silver community? Where the hell are they in the Bible? Is this heresy? Agnostic reference? Isn’t this sun business a little, I don’t know, animistic? Pagan? Go ahead and answer that question for yourself. I’ll give you a second. Do you understand the music any better? Faith is like theater: it isn’t meant to be read, or analyzed it is meant to be performed and inhabited. Upon being asked if he believed in Gawd or not, Norman Mailer replied, “Sure, why don’t you and make him better?” You know that adage we all use so we have something to say while we shrug our shoulders? “People change”? That one. Is that applicable to Jesus Christ? Maybe he’s been on a personal journey of discovery since he ascended. He went through the 60’s, 70’s, he turned on, tuned out, got disillusioned. Why can’t we talk about that Jesus? Does it have to be the old-timey one all the time? American folk Jesus, ugh. The one who’s always winning Best Soundtrack Oscars for people. Rarely do stories of faith make us identify with Jesus. It’s Abraham, Satan, Silver Timothy, Salome, Dr. J, Saul of Tarsus; divinely imperfect brothers and sisters who give Gawd something to do. Damien Jurado made up his own Jesus because a Damien Jurado album needs a beautiful Jesus. Some freaky space Jesus that I don’t recognize. The name is the same, a lot of the imagery is the same, but he’s reborn. Born again, I mean. Yeah, as if Jesus got born again. That’s what this album sounds like. Jesus is out of his goddamn mind and I want to live in Damien’s America. Sign me up. --- Father John Misty; 09-20-2013
Damien Jurado’s 11th album, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, is the third piece in a Richard Swift-produced triptych that began with 2010’s St. Bartlett and continued on 2012’s Maraqopa. It's yet another leap into territory that Jurado has only touched on previously.
The latest full-length from the Seattle veteran might be his most ambitious yet.
Since partnering with Richard Swift on 2010’s Saint Bartlett, Damien Jurado’s music has diverged from that of the somber…
Long-running indie singer/songwriter Damien Jurado branched out into even deeper sonic territory with his Richard Swift-produced 2012 album, Maraqopa.
“Do not disturb me, let me be,” Damien Jurado sings in quiet resignation over a gently-plucked guitar, on penultimate track Silver Joy. It’s these pit-stops of brilliant clarity scattered through the existential fugue which have defined his past three albums – records of transient beauty. With each Richard Swift-produced release, Jurado climbs further into the rabbit hole, becoming bolder with his musical choices, more attached to his themes and detached from his past.
There's always been a hint of spirituality to Damien Jurado. The Seattle-born singer/songwriter's solo recordings tend to bathe in chiming melodies and puritanical lyricism, creating deep and soulful psalms flushed with introspection.
Album review: Damien Jurado - 'Brothers And Sisters Of The Eternal Son'... "an endearingly ambitious, somewhat unexpected folk-rock triumph."
<p>Singer-songwriter Damien Jurado's third album with producer Richard Swift continues a rich vein of form, writes <strong>Phil Mongredien</strong></p>
If the quest for the self amid rugged terrain and religious- and drug-tinged language is a time-honored American one, Jurado chronicles it guardedly, if not impersonally.
Review of The New Album From Damien Jurado "Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son". The LP comes out on January 21st via Secretly Canadian Records.
Damien Jurado last surfaced as one of Moby’s collaborators on the Innocents album. From the sound of Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, Beck might have been a more logical musical partner. Texture-wise, Jurado’s new release sits alongside Sea Change-era Beck as well as the dense, fuggy atmosphere of his own last outing, 2012’s Maraqopa.