DELICATE STEVE
AFTER HOURS
08.07. (ANTI- Records)
Delicate Steve hat heute ein neues Album angekündigt. „After Hours", das fünfte Studioalbum des innovativen Gitarristen und Produzenten Steve Marion, wird am 8. Juli erscheinen. Geschrieben und aufgenommen auf einer 1966er Fender Stratocaster, die seine Liebe zu diesem Instrument neu entfachte, ist "After Hours" eine Premiere für Marion: eine ernsthafte, unbeschwerte Sammlung von Songs, die in der einfachen Freude des „Plugg In und loslegen“ schwelgen.
Mit der Ankündigung hat er auch ein Video für den neuen Track "Street Breeze" veröffentlicht. "Dieser Song fängt das Gefühl ein, vor die Tür zu treten und auf die Straße zu gehen, durch eine Stadt zu laufen, ohne ein Ziel vor Augen zu haben", sagt Steve über die Themen des Songs. "Wenn man kein Ziel vor Augen hat, ist man offen für die Möglichkeit, überall zu landen. Normalerweise ist das am Ende eine gute Sache. "
In dem Clip schlendert Steve zunächst allein durch eine nächtliche Straße, nachdem er vor niemandem eine Show gespielt hat, doch schon bald wird er zum Mittelpunkt der Party. Sehen Sie sich den Clip unten an.
Die Songs auf "After Hours" sind süß und luftig und verbinden Vintage-Soul-Grooves mit hypnotisierenden, wortlosen Melodien, und Marions Produktion ist angemessen subtil und zurückhaltend und hält sich an den richtigen Stellen zurück, um die meisterhaften Darbietungen des Albums für sich selbst sprechen zu lassen. Eine weitere Premiere ist, dass Marion für das Album mit externen Musikern zusammenarbeitete und eine Gruppe von All-Star-Musikern, darunter der renommierte Bassist Shahzad Ismaily (Yoko Ono, Marc Ribot) und der berühmte brasilianische Perkussionist Mauro Refosco (David Byrne, Atoms For Peace), hinzuzog, um die Arrangements zu vervollständigen und seine klanglichen Grenzen zu erweitern. Das Ergebnis ist Marions bisher wärmstes Werk, ein einladendes, sofort zugängliches Album, das nachdenkliche Introspektion und unbeschwerte Glückseligkeit gleichermaßen in Einklang bringt.
"Ich wollte, dass die Leute Trost in der Musik finden, dass sie ein Zuhause in ihr finden, denn das hat sie für mich getan", sagt Marion. "Es hat mir geholfen, endlich ein Zuhause im Klang der E-Gitarre zu finden."
In den Jahren seit Delicate Steves Debütalbum "Wondervisions" aus dem Jahr 2011 hat er viel erreicht: Er konnte Aufnahmen mit Künstlern wie Paul Simon, Amen Dunes und Sondre Lerche machen, live unter anderem mit Yeasayer, Mac DeMarco, Built To Spill, Dr. Dog und Tune-Yards auftreten, seine Songs wurden nicht nur einmal, sondern zweimal von Kanye West gesampelt, und er war mit den Black Keys als Tourgitarrist unterwegs, um das 2019 erscheinende Album "Let's Rock" zu unterstützen.
Wenn sich das alles nach viel für einen Mann anhört, dann deshalb, weil es das auch war, und als das Jahr 2020 kam, musste Marion sich von dem Lärm zurückziehen. Als die Pandemie begann, verbrachte er ein Jahr unplugged in der Wüste von Tucson, Arizona; nach dieser Auszeit von der Musik entdeckte er die alte Fender Stratocaster, die seine Liebe zur Gitarre wieder aufleben ließ.
Bis dahin hatte ich immer versucht, den Gitarrensound in unerforschte Gefilde vorzustoßen", sagt Marion, dessen 2019er-Album "Till I Burn Up" mit experimenteller Elektronik und kühner Klangmanipulation kokettierte. "Aber als ich diese Gitarre in die Hände bekam, wurde mir klar, dass das Abenteuerlichste und Unerwartetste, was ich tun konnte, war, sie einfach an einen Verstärker anzuschließen und zu spielen."
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Band: Delicate Steve
Album: Till I Burn Up
VÖ: 01.03.2019
Label: ANTI-/ Indigo
Website: http://delicatesteve.com/
“In a time where nothing makes sense, or when everyone is trying to make sense of everything, even the right idea might not make perfect sense to everybody at that moment.”
Steve Marion, the songwriter, guitarist, and producer who has made four studio records of primarily word-less, guitar-first music as Delicate Steve, is talking about the bifurcated and reactionary culture of the moment. But by no coincidence he’s also describing musical moments that helped to inspire Till I Burn Up (Anti-, 2019) his forthcoming LP.
The album name comes from a line in Dr. John's “Walk on Guilded Splinters” where Steve misheard John’s actual phrase "Tit Alberta" as "Till I Burn Up." But more than fodder for an album title, John’s Gris Gris, and records like it, informed a new frame-of-mind for an artist who has historically set out to make a predetermined statement with every recording.
“The idea of this young freak making Gris Gris in LA, and nobody knowing what to do with it in 1968... He gave me confidence to be a little more freaky and abstract instead of quirky and nicely-packaged like my last album was.” Steve goes on to cite early records by Iggy Pop and Dylan and The Band’s electric tour that were panned at the time and lauded in hindsight. “There is a confidence that comes with abandoning the idea of wanting to create something that everyone might like to check out.”
But all is not bifurcated, and we know two things can be true at once. The confidence necessary for Steve to make Till I Burn Up could also be self-inspired. Now nearly ten years into his career, Steve is a cult artist of his time who has been called to record with his heroes (Paul Simon, Kanye West) and contribute significantly to his contemporaries’ modern masterworks (Amen Dunes, Freedom), all the while recording and releasing his own critically hailed work and sharing the stage with Tame Impala, Mac DeMarco, Growlers and others.
The artist whose songwriting and playing has been marked through by transcendent moments of buoyancy and joy has created a pulsing and propulsive record in Till I Burn Up. He put up at a studio in Woodstock and found himself playing Freddie Mercury’s Oberheim synthesizer and his guitar plugged into Robbie Robertson’s Fender amp.
With the intent to turn away from the times, Steve managed instead to document the sound of this moment -- the ever-undwinding feed that feeds the feedback loop of talking heads, twitter tick-ticking like a bomb, the timed drip- like morphine- of news breaking in our hands, the party before the shoe drops, our interior dialogue, all the contradictions…
A song called “Freedom” is underpinned by a grinding circular guitar line interrupted by what sounds like synthetic warning sirens. “Rat in the House”, “Rubberneck”, and “Madness” are blinkered dancefloor rippers suited for a bunker party. “Selfie of Man” recognizes the pervasive behavior and its result, as a literal portrait of our times. It moves along in marched lockstep, with inversely reflecting guitar lines. The album’s closer ‘Dream’ allows Steve and his listeners some free range. Until then, each song is self-contained and self-referential -- an ouroboros within a greater ouroboros called Till I Burn Up.
Infos zum vorherigen Album:
Band: Delicate Steve
Album: This is Steve
VÖ: 27.01.2017
Label: ANTI - / Indigo
Website: www.delicatesteve.com
When the world first met Delicate Steve in 2011, Steve Marion and the band he principled were an artfully crafted fiction. Tasked with introducing Wondervisions, Delicate Steve's beguiling debut record of highly evocative and emotionally concise guitar-driven songs, Luaka Bop, the seminal David Byrne-owned New York indie label, balked. There was the music to get to; itself essentially reference-less and unqualifiedly unique. But what of the guy who created it? The guitarist who wrote the whole thing, who played every instrument. An enormous unknown talent without an attendant backstory to match the spectral and boundless qualities of his music. Enter Chuck Klosterman. The celebrated writer was brought on to completely fabricate a biography based on a band and album he was asked not to listen to.
While the record racked up high praise from outlets including The New York Times and NPR, nearly everything music fans read about Delicate Steve was a fiction. Listeners were left to the music alone to determine who Steve was. As is often the case, some of the first people to recognize Delicate Steve's music were fellow artists who became vocal supporters, as the young guy from upstate New Jersey began to develop a growing fanbase in small New York clubs like Glasslands, Union Pool, and Mercury Lounge. Following the 2012 release of Positive Force, Delicate Steve had cornered the status of 'your favorite band's favorite band', as Steve himself became a fixture in and an on-demand collaborator among disparate scenes, players, and bands, making some of the most celebrated and forward thinking music today: Co-signs and work with David Byrne, Dirty Projectors, tUnE-yArDs, Mac DeMarco, Dr. Dog, and elder statesmen like Lee Ranaldo and Built to Spill. Likely the only guitarist alive who will cut records with Sondre Lerche and Death Grip's Zach Hill. Handpicked to open a sold out North American tour for Tame Impala. And most recently, providing guitar on Paul Simon's new record.
These wild artistic relationships came to be because Steve happens to be one of the most talented songwriters and guitarists currently working. But they are also a direct reflection of the person, the soul of a guy any artist or fan who's met him will identify immediately. It's the same soul that fills his songs. This is Steve, Delicate Steve's first new record in 4 years, and first for the ANTI- imprint, is an articulation of this spirit. Joy. Love. Positivity. Perseverance. Meditation. A general communion with the people and world around him. Easy to call such things hackneyed in this cynical time, but in Steve's case, it’s very hard to separate the person from the art. It's real. It's pure. This, is Steve.
Melody begins with the needle drop on This is Steve, and it's this hallmark as a songwriter on display in tune after tune that has defined all of Delicate Steve's work. It's his incredible capacity to write wordless songs that are impossible not to sing along to. He works in no genre, there are no words, but there is never a question as to what he is saying. Tunes like "Animals," "Help," and "Nightlife," establish their hooks immediately, and drop you with Steve as he runs alongside leopards, scales a Western peak, nurses a boozy Kingston come-down, before clocking out at under three minutes and depositing you somewhere else on a technicolor continuum. Throughout the set, Steve's guitar melodies rise and crest, unguarded expressions of wonderment and positivity.
Steve produced and played all the instruments on this record. He created it as an introduction from himself to you, and named it appropriately. If there is a question as to who This is Steve’s creator is, you'll find it imbued in these ten songs. As he has done from the start, Steve lets the music speak for itself. Without a word.
