DAMIEN JURADO'S SAINT BARTLETT TO BE RELEASED THIS MAY

Preview the Record with the MP3 for "Arkansas"



Saint Bartlett opens up with a grandiosity yet unheard on a Damien Jurado album. It strips away the many layers of paint from the house down the street where we know Jurado has occupied for the last decade. The new coat is exhilarating. It makes the whole neighborhood shine. It's a modest grandiosity; still homegrown. The mellotron swells, heavenly handclaps ring in stereo and big drums create a sky for the songs to fly in. And the words. Words spring forth from within the volcano of Jurado, full of hope. There's so much hope, in fact, that album opener "Cloudy Shoes" turns into a call-and-response with himself, as though it were a dialogue between two halves of himself.ado and Swift as the performers.

"I wish that I could float up from the ground / I will never know what that's like"

Heavy stuff. Richard Swift's Spector-esque production is spot-on. He ferries Jurado across the river, where the metamorphosis occurs. He then ferries him back, and it is through Swift's lens that we see Jurado not as a folk singer, but as a mystic somewhere between Van Morrison, Scott Walker and Wayne Coyne. Saint Bartlett was made entirely at Swift's National Freedom studio in Oregon, in just under a week with only Jurado and Swift as the performers.

We are excited to share the debut MP3 from the album with you today for "Arkansas." Download it here.





Saint Bartlett will be released by Secretly Canadian on May 25th in North America (May 24th in the UK).



Tour dates for Damien Jurdado in North America and Europe are pending: please stay tuned to Secretly Canadian for updates!

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MP3: "Arkansas"