Tuesday, November 20, 2012

:: The Eremite's Dream ::


We're happy to announce that The Eremite's Dream by Sagas is available now from Digitalis in an edition of 50 cassettes with superb artwork by Brad Rose. Recorded in summer 2011, these six tracks are the last thing I recorded in Pittsburgh before relocating to the west coast... again. Here's what Digitalis had to say about it:

Matt McDowell is a conjurer. Wielding his guitar, he can make cobras dance and spirits rise toward the smoke-filled heavens. On The Eremite’s Dream, his latest manifesto, there’s an overwhelming grittiness that permeates everything. Inside the subtle grooves of “Fractal Dunes,” McDowell is at his peak. Eastern-tinged scales rise and fall in succession like the bones of a once great empire find its way to relevance once again. This is music that’s soaked in red dust.

But the thing that makes Sagas so potent and McDowell so damn good is not just his range, but his ability to put together a sequence that flows cohesively and finds narratives inside those disparate elements. “Parallels” mixes in keyboard elements (by his wife, Jackie) for something pastoral and saccharine. B-Side opener “Mammal Brain” is a fuzzed-out romp through dystopian wastelands, complete with buried, minimal rhythms and dueling solo action. It’s this mix of tones and themes that make The Eremite’s Dream so great. 

Stream it here.

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