Amen Dunes Comes to Greenpoint

Amen Dunes, aka Damon McMahon occasionally joined by special guests, put out a new 12” EP this Tuesday, July 27 called Murder Dull Mind. It’s his sophomore effort and fittingly, he comes to Greenpoint twice this week to promote it. The first show on Thursday, July 29 is his record release proper (Sacred Bones Records) with Gary War, CoConuts and Prince Rama at Coco 66 at 9:00 p.m., and then the very next evening, Friday, July 30, he plays a free in-store performance at Permanent Records at 7:00 p.m. with friend and NYC accomplice, Parker Kindred on drums.

When visiting the Permanent Records Web site this week, an advertisement for the Amen Dunes show is one of the first things you’ll notice. The write-up, pulled from the Sacred Bones Web site, refers to the music as “a bit less psych freak out and a bit more dark folk vibe throughout.” Perhaps the “less and more” in this description is in reference to the Amen Dunes debut record, Dia out last May on Chicago’s Locust Records (though recorded in 2006), or maybe it’s a comparison to the music earlier created by Damon McMahon, either on his solo record or prior to that, with his late band Inouk.

McMahon recorded Murder Dull Mind while he was living in Beijing, China, where he went partially to take a break from the New York City music scene for a while, but while there, he still wrote songs. After Inouk ended in 2005/2006 and McMahon put out a solo record in 2006 that he describes as “totally different” and “its own thing,” he got kind of burnt out on playing music in New York by 2007 and dropped out until last spring.

During his hiatus in China, McMahon got a job as a journalist, traveled and essentially checked out of the public eye for a while. “I kind of went to China to get away from New York and to get away from playing music and being in bands and everything, but I still wrote songs . . . I didn’t play shows or anything but I was still making music,” McMahon said.

Though McMahon preferred the way of life out in China to life in New York—“life in China is slow and the things people care about there are really different than things people care about in Brooklyn and in the music world,” McMahon said—he moved back to New York last spring when the first Amen Dunes record came out. He started playing shows around Dia that spring and summer and has been ever since. He did a US tour that summer, went to Europe in November and then went on an East Coast tour just this past May from Baltimore up to Canada where he played a festival in Nova Scotia.

“I lived in a parallel universe for two years [in China] and then all of a sudden I’m back [in New York] and there are bands and parties and it was kind of a harsh shock, but, you know, you quickly become a New Yorker again. Also, after [an] experience [like that] you don’t get hung up as much on things here. I feel like I’m more able to just do what I do and not get caught up in everything as much as I did maybe when I was younger [and] before moving to China,” McMahon said.

McMahon didn’t want to give away too much about the sound of his new record; listeners will have to see, or hear, for themselves. “It’s meditative music in a way, for me—that’s the best way I can describe it,” McMahon said. If you’re a fan of McMahon’s older music, be warned; he said what he’s doing now is pretty different from the music he’s made in the past. “This is me doing what I feel most comfortable with,” McMahon said.

While McMahon is busy promoting this week’s release, he is also recording right now for an EP scheduled to come out in the fall on Belgium-based label Kraak. After that, he plans to put out another full-length record this winter or next spring, the label still tbd. For now, make sure to catch McMahon at one of his Greenpoint gigs this week.