Quinn, Donovan

Quinn, Donovan

Absalom

Soft Abuse

Absalom is the fourth full length release from Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards / New Bums), and his first solo outing in seven years. Coming out of the psychedelic underground school of ’01, Quinn has slowly built an idiosyncratic catalogue that combines obsessive long-form metaphors and oblique arrangements with simple song structures.  As on previous albums, there is a consistent lyrical narrative that runs through shifting sonic spaces. Sparse singer-songwriter arrangements, outsider art piano ballads, loping numbers with a folk rock combo, and baroque pop string arrangements all find their way into the brew. Reuniting with frequent collaborators Ben Chasny, who mixed the record, Elisa Ambrogio, Jessica Roberts, Jason Quever, Michael Tapscott and Eric Amerman, Quinn recorded Absalom in several home and professional studios to achieve a veritable collage effect with instrumentation and musicians changing from song to song.  The idea for Absalom started with an abandoned project called “Fan Fiction,” intended to build songs based on the lore of other artists, as well as expanding on originals previously written by Quinn. Tucked away in the vaults are demos continuing the stories of characters from two Squeeze hits, Clarice Lispector’s Aqua Viva, Jozef Czapski’s lectures on Proust in a Soviet prison camp, Jackson C. Frank’s “Tumble In The Wind”, and the biblical story of Absalom. Bored by the limitations of the project, “Fan Fiction” was scraped, but the themes of familial dissolution and love in the Absalom story that provided a genesis for what became the Absalom album. Printed...

Quinn, Donovan

Dad Was Buried In His Leather Jacket

Soft Abuse

Donovan Quinn leaps back into solo activity with Dad Was Buried In His Leather Jacket, an EP of mostly uptempo story songs with character changes but consistent stories throughout. Quinn writes about those at the end of a long series of parties, in the penumbra around the fun, just before all the booze and drugs and casual conversation turn sour... A large cast of collaborators help create the atmosphere of trouble hiding behind fun. Quinn’s New Bums partner Ben Chasny adds devastating shredder guitar to “Game with No Rules,” while Glenn Donaldson, the other half of Quinn’s duo Skygreen Leopards, adds textural synth and sweet high vocals. Others on board include Elisa Ambrogio (Magik Markers), Jason Quever (Papercuts), David Novick, Michael Tapscott (Odawas) and Eric Amerman, all of whom push Quinn’s songs into surprising new places.