In Spin the Black Circle, we go in search of key records in the lives of musicians who are presenting their new album in Brussels. The American psych-folk artist Damien Jurado is kicking things off.
Spin the Black Circle: Damien Jurado
Also read: Spin the Black Circle: Compact Disk Dummies
"It was [producer] Richard Swift’s idea to channel all my influences through one funnel into the same record,” Damien Jurado says in the first episode of the new season of De Canvasconnectie on the Flemish television channel Canvas. He’s talking about Visions of Us on the Land, his new, eleventh album, which forms the final instalment of the trilogy that started four years ago with Maraqopa and continued with Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son in 2014.
The story of this trilogy came to Jurado in a bizarre dream in which a man turns his back on society in order to reboot his body and spirit. He travels to the desert and finds himself in Maraqopa, a utopian community that is awaiting the second coming of Christ by way of a spaceship. The place only exists in Jurado’s head, but there are similarities to the thought of the American architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller, the Jesus People Movement, and the utopian hippie town Drop City that was founded in the 1960s.
“In some ways it’s like creating a soundtrack,” Jurado says about the three albums that translate the dream into sound. A soundtrack that bursts open like a cosmic cloud of freak soul with snippets of tropicalia, folk, country, and psychedelica. It might sound like Syd Barrett produced by David Axelrod, but for us Jurado singled out these magnificent seven albums.
Martin Denny— Exotic Moog (1969)
“One of the first records that comes to mind when I think about Visions of Us on the Land is Exotic Moog by Martin Denny. My grandparents had his albums; he’s one of those artists whose name people don’t know but they recognise his music. Denny is an artist from LA who moved to Latin America in the 1950s and became the godfather of exotica. Just like tropicalia, that music was very influential. I live in Seattle, but I grew up in the southern US. My father is a Mexican. He had Santana’s Abraxas on eight-track, and we often listened to it in the car. When the tape broke, I got it myself. That was the first album I ever bought, in 1978, when I was six years old.”
Black Flag — Damaged (1981)
Black Flag — Damaged (1981)
“Black Flag crossed my path when I was a teenager. My upbringing was kind of difficult. I was a very angry kid. When I heard Damaged, I immediately felt intensely connected. Nowadays music doesn’t seem to have that effect on me anymore – there are a few exceptions, like Ryley Walker and Jessica Pratt, or Mount Eerie. While I was making the trilogy, after that dream was tightening its grip on my life, I went through a very dark period during which I thought I was going insane. But I can’t say that music got me out of that hole. Perhaps I am too isolated on my own island for that.”
Jim Sullivan — Jim Sullivan (1972)
Jim Sullivan — Jim Sullivan (1972)
“I only heard the story of Jim Sullivan walking into the desert and never returning a while after I had my dream about a man turning his back on society. The similarities are striking, yes. Sullivan’s music is fantastic. Everyone should listen to his debut U.F.O., an underestimated masterpiece that he recorded with the Wrecking Crew. But he later made a second album, an untitled record that I actually think is even better than U.F.O. That record wasn’t very popular at the time either, which is incomprehensible and a great shame. Three years later, Sullivan disappeared into the desert and was never seen again.”
Dead can dance — Spleen and Ideal (1985)
Dead can dance — Spleen and Ideal (1985)
“The arrangements on Visions of Us on the Land are very grand. Spleen and Ideal by Dead Can Dance influenced me a lot in that respect. Listen to that first track, ‘De Profundis (Out of the Depths of Sorrow)’, it is really phenomenal. It sounds as though it was recorded in a gigantic cathedral. I guess you’ll see a pattern in this selection: Dead Can Dance is another band that is very eclectic and ungraspable. They blended new wave with Gregorian chant, Mongolian throat singing, and even bells. There hasn’t been a band like them since.”
Crass — Stations of the Crass (1979)
Crass — Stations of the Crass (1979)
“In contrast to the grand arrangements of Dead Can Dance, there was the rawness of Crass. I encountered them at around the same time. They were punk, but there isn’t another punk band that sounds like them. They used transistor radios as instruments. They used snare rolls as a ‘beat’ and then draped lyrics across them. OK, they had a political vision. But musically, they were much too creative and too progressive to be labelled punk. Nowadays artists and bands are pretty conformist. They make things much too easy. Music is freedom, progression. Just like John Coltrane and the Beatles, for example, Crass pushed the limits.”
Captain Beefheart — Trout Mask Replica (1969)
Captain Beefheart — Trout Mask Replica (1969)
“It is true that my music has become more psychedelic on my recent albums. There are hundreds of great psych records that I could recommend, but I think Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart is one of the most interesting ones. Although you wouldn’t spontaneously label it as psychedelic, that is what I find so gripping about it: the music is eclectic and ungraspable. It is rock ‘n’ roll, but it is also otherworldly. When the album was released, journalists and fans didn’t know what to do with it. That’s why I feel so connected to it: it is difficult to peg down my music too. Trout Mask Replica is an inscrutable album; you have to listen to it and nothing else for a whole week to understand it. From beginning to end, you can’t just dive into it. It is a complete work.”
Tangerine Dream — Thief (1981)
Tangerine Dream — Thief (1981)
“I made my first soundtrack last year, for the film Tumbledown. It will also be my last because I thought it was a total nightmare – I had to make too much compromises. But soundtracks are a major influence on my work. Blade Runner by Vangelis is an absolute favourite. I am a great sci-fi lover. But I also really like the score that Tangerine Dream made for Thief, Michael Mann’s directorial debut. Incidentally, they are an incredible band. Their album Stratosfear is my favourite record to play in the car. Actually, that whole German electronica scene: Neu!, Can, Kraftwerk, it is so fantastic in its simplicity and repetitiveness. My youngest son is three and a half now. He loves Kraftwerk.”
DAMIEN JURADO
10/4, 19.30, Botanique, www.botanique.be
DAMIEN JURADO
10/4, 19.30, Botanique, www.botanique.be
Spin the Black Circle
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