Amen Dunes: "I never chose to be lo-fi because I thought it was cool"

But here on Love, McMahon (joined by band mates Jordi Wheeler and Parker Kindred, plus members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Iceage and saxophone god Colin Stetson) has delivered a mainly bright and hopeful record that addresses love, loss, drugs and devotion through songs that have, variously, a psych chug, straight ahead rock, 60s jangle, Scott Walker balladeering and, most importantly, a massive debt to the late 60s/early 70s records of Pharaoh Sanders, Alice Coltrane and Marvin Gaye. It’s a cosmic record that keeps its feet firmly grounded in the real.

Despite the roll call of guests, what hits you about Love is how simple and stripped-down it actually is: it’s the piano, drums and vocals that are to the fore, McMahon’s wandering voice brilliantly accompanied by Wheeler and Kindred’s wonderfully precise playing, whether it’s the focused motorik of “Lonely Richard” or the inspired, instinctive flow of “Splits Are Parted” where the guitars and piano feel completely inseparable. But it’s the lyrics I mention first when I speak to McMahon as he roams the streets of New York. I ask Damon if the title was a conscious decision about being more open and welcoming with his music: “It was actually a mix of things,” he begins. “On one hand it’s a very commonplace word and is probably as prosaic a word as you can get, you know?”

Does it lack some sincerity? “First off, I don’t really mean it….there are several kinds of love and in part it’s about romantic love – the album was made as I came out of a long relationship, just coincidentally – but the love I really mean is the love you hear in a lot of music.” McMahon goes on to reveal some sources of inspiration: “A lot of music inspires this record in particular; people like Marvin Gaye, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, or Sam Cooke…Alice Coltrane, that kind of love. It’s devotional music love, and a selfless kind of love…..and also just trying to take the piss! See for a while, it feels like everyone has been trying to be more ‘dark’ than the next guy, and I thought I would be punk rock to have a title that was irritatingly not that.”

There have been interviews with McMahon about Love which have him quoted as saying that it’s an album by Amen Dunes that people will finally like. It’s a curious statement given how fine 2011’s Through Donkey Jaw and the supposedly controversial Spoiler actually are, and how very listenable the pair are. Yes, there’s difficult moments on both but shouldn’t music challenge? I ask McMahon about this quote, and it turns out that it’s not terribly accurate: “Well, that was a misquote” he says, slightly miffed about the whole thing. “People liked the Spoiler record, but what I meant was I’m making a record that more people will be able to enjoy, you know? I want to be as useful as I can with my music; I’m on this planet, I do what I do and I wanna spread the energy waves as far as they can go. That’s what I’ve been thinking lately.” Staying with Spoiler, though, did he use up any goodwill with Sacred Bones over the whole affair [the label didn’t want to release it] when it came to delivering Love to them? “Oh they know I’m pretty diverse and weird,” laughs Damon. “I’m unconventional, I guess, so they know I have the Spoiler side but that I have lots of other sides too. But I simultaneously gave them the demos for Love when I gave them Spoiler so they knew there was other stuff they could maybe…sell.”

Whether it’s a record more people can enjoy or not, Love certainly signals a turn towards a cleaner sound for Amen Dunes. Previous albums have found songs cloaked in a haze and fuzz (not reverb, as McMahon later reveals he doesn’t like or use the pedal very much at all), a narcotic fug that while trippily appealing might be the source of some people taking a dislike to McMahon’s music and recording choices. Love doesn’t completely dispense with this feel, but there is a brightness present that often warms the heart. I ask McMahon if he can hear this progression to clarity through his albums: “Yeah, definitely man,” he affirms. “I never chose to be lo-fi because I thought it was cool…I did it because I didn’t like pro studios, and couldn’t afford to get fancy gear of my own! So I just recorded myself. But this time there was a big difference; we recorded with really nice gear and in big rooms, and I wanted something that was beautiful and big. I’ve always wanted that, I just couldn’t attain it with the equipment I had…you can’t compete with the sonic quality of records from back in the day.”

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For the second of many times in our conversation McMahon mentions two artists in particular who proved to be vital in the development of the album: Pharaoh Sanders and Alice Coltrane, who I say is a personal favourite of mine and perhaps a sound he took inspiration from? “Oh yeah, Sanders’ Karma, Alice Coltrane for sure, Marvin Gaye records from the 70s, the last two Talk Talk records…those kind of big jungles of acoustic instruments, that’s kind of what I was looking for.” Was there a temptation to throw everything at the record? Strings, horn sections…the lot? “Oh definitely! I think what happened was, you’re hearing the end result,” says McMahon, “but I did throw a shitload of stuff on every track. You know, half of Godspeed play on every song along with string players and horn players from Montreal…so the original tracks had tons of overdubs but they way I work is that I like to strip things down to their pure core, so you just end up with piano, drum and vocals – which I love! I like things when they are super-pure. John Wesley Harding - I love that record because it’s far more potent when your ears can only listen to what’s happening with the bass, the drum and the vocal.”

As well as members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor ( a particularly excellent moment is Sophie Trudeau’s violin on the Byrdsian “Rocket Flares”) and Colin Stetson on Love, it also features vocal contributions by Iceage’s Elias Bender Rønnenfelt on the stunning psych chug of “Lonely Richard” and the terrific vibraphone-laden doom-ballad duet “Green Eyes”. I ask - how did he end up on the record? “He [Elias] and I are both secret crooners! I met him a few years ago when we played some shows together and we’re mutual admirers of each others’ music, so the idea of working together was exciting and he happened to be in town – and I love his voice! I like good singers, and he’s a good singer. And the Godspeed guys [there’s production from Dave Bryant and Thee Silver Mount Zion’s Efrim Menuck], they just really liked Amen Dunes; two years ago they asked us to go on tour with them and they just seem to like our music. They said ‘why don’t you come up [to Montreal] and it was very much like entering their world up there. Except for Elias, they were all kind of the Godspeed friends.” It must have been an honour to go up to Hotel2Tango as those guys don’t often let people into their world…”It’s rare that they bring people from the outside in, so I was really flattered that they wanted to do that.”

It’s often the case on Love, and on previous Amen Dunes albums, that McMahon enjoys manipulating his voice, but there’s something striking about the way he delivers the vocal on “Lonely Richard”. It’s clearly more high-pitched and nasally than on other tracks, so what was the thinking behind that? “I’m not really aware of that,” he says. “I try to mess around on every song! My whole thing is that I like to mess around with my voice; I like to put it in uncomfortable places or try and play with it a bit. The original version of “Lonely Richard” was super-weird; I sang it in – and I don’t know why – in this like Thai English accent or something…it has this South East Asian kinda pysch feeling to it.” I say that it’s the one track that really sticks out as not sounding like McMahon, that it’s definitely another voice coming through him: “Oh totally,” he agrees. “That’s funny that it comes through. I wrote it and recorded it like the way I explained and then tried to make it into my own but…yeah I’m singing about other people and other planets and stuff. Whenever I sing, I try and sing through another self.” It comes through on the title track as well, doesn’t it? “Definitely on the title track; I was super far out on that one….I was like, I wanna make an eight or nine minute song, not an eight or nine minute jam session, that’s easy, anyone can do that. There’s this song, “The Creator Has a Master Plan”, that’s one of my favourite records ever, and [vocalist] Leon Thomas is a big inspiration, so “Love” was kind of our Pharaoh Sanders riff.” We’re back to Sanders and Coltrane, aren’t we? “Yeah! Before making Love there were these big musical presences presenting themselves – Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders were the big ones.” I say that Coltrane was incredible, the sounds she achieved on the harp with no effects pedals, and just that whole atmosphere of otherworldliness found purely through music… “Oh, she’s the best right? That production is what I wanted for this record: my goal is to put these American singers like Elvis, Van Morrison, Marvin Gaye – I know Morrison isn’t American but he has that style - at the centre of a Coltrane and Sanders environment. I’m not a fan of pedals at all, so that’s why I like the way Alice Coltrane made things druggy and cosmic just by the way she played – pure.”

​Love is out now via Sacred Bones. Amen Dunes plays London Electric Ballroom tomorrow with Follakzoid & Wooden Shjips