***"Hello, friend. I hope all is well with you. I am writing to let you know that my new album, Reunion, is now available in a limited vinyl edition on the ever/never label. After working with a backing band for the last two records, I decided to return to writing and recording alone in the studio, the way I made A Sudden Shift ten years ago, and the way I did for nearly 20 years before that. I started tracking for Reunion at the tail end of 2019 with my engineer, Gregg, at a beautifully appointed studio in Connecticut. That proved a slow and expensive process, and of course it ground to a halt when the pandemic struck in March 2020. I thought I’d make the best of it, start over and try fleshing out the songs at home on the Mac, so that when the world opened up again I would have a detailed blueprint for the album, and I could go back to the studio and track all of it quickly and methodically. Instead, I wound up making the entire record at home. Gregg’s mix and mastering job made these homemade tracks go bang, and thanks to his finesse, it is the best-sounding record I’ve made so far. Last night when we listened to the test pressing of the album at e/n’s offices, a friend remarked that 'Anita, Sing' is an adult contemporary track. I winced, reflexively, but of course, she was right: the song is based on...
LP $26.95
03/04/2022
***When we last checked in with urban troubadour Richard Papiercuts, he was leading his band through the ambitious pop of IF, his debut for Ever/Never. A major statement from an unknown artist, IF was ripping with drama and daring listeners into a twilight world rife with lust, life, and the many contradictions contained within such four-letter words. Now three years wiser, Papiercuts has shed some of the mystery to confront the camera dead-on. Twisting the Night is a glossier production, timeless while conjuring the flickering pop-surrealism of ‘80s music videos and the grandiose maximalism of Peter Gabriel, INXS, and Tears for Fears, but on a 20 hour studio time limit. Over the course of TTN's four songs, Papiercuts and his crack band sculpt stately tableaus that hew toward the dark side of pop while avoiding cliches and sentimentality. 'There’s no correction, no distortion / in the way your voice cuts through the air': So begin the lyrics to opening cut 'A Place to Stay,' which serves as a re-introduction to Papiercuts’s soundworld, this time around avoiding obfuscation and willing to meet the listener halfway. 'Starless Summer Night,' an epic, seven-minute centerpiece, is described by Papiercuts as a 'lucid nightmare' in the tradition of the Elevators and Tom Verlaine, but where apocalyptic dread mingles with the everyday anxieties of fatherhood. This is big pop music for big hearts and minds. But the hit on Twisting the Night is 'The Riddle,' a shimmering anthem that whorls about like a mirage, seducing the...
12" $17.75
01/04/2018
***Influenced in equal measure by both sides of the street and the top and bottom of the charts, RICHARD PAPIERCUTS’ IF sets a new standard for ambitious pop music on a shoestring budget. Meticulously recorded throughout New York City over the course of a turbulent year, Papiercuts & co. traffic in shades of light and dark. Like a master of ceremonies at an underground cabaret, Papiercuts—a mystery man of uncertain origin and pedigree—is an expert guide to the many quandaries of a modern metropolitan existence. IF is unafraid to explore a complex inner life rife with anxiety and doubt, yet it revels in the sensual pleasures only the contemporary cityscape can provide. IF is the ultimate marriage of subversive, underground sensibilities and classic songwriting craftsmanship silhouetted on a larger-than-life canvas. This music encompasses an ordinary life played out in widescreen. We are all our own celluloid heroes, Papiercuts seems to be telling us. Embrace your starring role, be your biggest fan.
LP $17.75
10/09/2015