Photo by Dean Chooch Landry
“His multi-dimensional songwriting takes you down a dark ally. You’re in a smoke filled room surrounded by thieves and hustlers. Every song on this record is true. It picks up and slams you down emotionally. NATHANIEL‘s no rules approach to putting these songs together pits it as the alternate version of the Taxi Driver soundtrack. In other words, it’s honest. It’s real.” – Steve Austin, Today Is The Day
Trespasses is the startling full-length debut from the Brooklyn-via-Detroit artist NATHANIEL SHANNON AND THE VANISHING TWIN. Set for release on October 28th via Aqualamb Records, the record features fifteen truly haunting tracks, the accumulation of nearly a decade of bedroom recordings by singer and multi-instrumentalist NATHANIEL SHANNON.
Never intended for the public, the hymns that make up Trespasses present an uninhibited glimpse into the murky corners of SHANNON‘s life-long fascination with the psychology of lurid sounds and visual arts. SHANNON describes the album as “a fantastical exploration into the mind of a person trying to hold his composure, and not let his inner demons loose. These songs are inspired by true situations I have read about, experienced, or created as an exercise in living out the life of characters who aren’t real, but could be. This is the soundtrack for a horror film that doesn’t exist.”
The perfect manifestation of SHANNON‘s vision comes in the form of Trespasses‘ lead off track “Debutantes.” Based loosely on Japan’s cannibal turned pop-culture figure Issei Sagawa, the song unfolds from his point of view – lust turning deadly not out of evil, but out of a blissful yearning to be one with his object of desire.
The rest of Trespasses continues the exploration of damaged relationships in varying forms physical and emotional dependency, superficial connections, volatile love, masochism, loss, religion and night time bloodlust, all told through SHANNON‘s vivid lyrical style and vocal delivery an unreliable narrator just on the teetering edge of breakdown. As a true solo endeavor, Trespasses finds SHANNON writing and performing nearly all of the album’s music –a cinematic array of layered textures including organ, ambient guitar and saxophone – orienting the music somewhere between Badalementi’s Twin Peaks score and Springsteen’s stripped down Nebraska.
Originally thought lost in the chaos of several breakups and subsequent moves throughout Brooklyn, Trespasses is an album that almost never was. Multi-track sessions for the songs were eventually unearthed and revisited, taking shape with the mixing and mastering assistance of Today Is the Day’s sonic mastermind Steve Austin. The songs’ dark themes are reinforced in the album’s accompanying artwork, also created by SHANNON who is an accomplished photographer and multimedia artist.
Said Austin, “I am super excited about the new album from NATHANIEL SHANNON AND THE VANISHING TWIN. Multi-dimensional songwriting takes you down a dark ally. You’re in a smoke filled room surrounded by thieves and hustlers. Every song on this record is true. It picks up and slams you down emotionally. NATHANIEL‘s no rules approach to putting these songs together pits it as the alternate version of the Taxi Driver soundtrack. In other words, it’s honest. It’s real.”
Available in Aqualamb’s signature format, the LP comes accompanied by a beautiful 100+ page printed book featuring original photo-collage images assembled specifically for the album. Also included are SHANNON‘s handwritten lyrics and other short stories, making for a truly sublime debut album package.
Preorder the album and book at THIS LOCATION. RIYL: Mark Lanegan, Angelo Badalemnti, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits etc.
Trespasses Track Listing:
- Debutantes
- One Sixty Second Street
- Pallbearer For My Lover’s Mother
- Bastard Blood
- Conversations Of Bloodlust And Moral Validity
- Lost Hills
- Deception Projection
- Content Of Attraction
- Halo
- Tombs
- Trespasses
- Open Letter To The City Of Ann Arbor
- Colma
- Time As Coffin
- Never Drink Dead Blood
In related news, SHANNON will bring his disquieting odes to the stage for a two part record release show beginning with a memorial at Church Of The Ascension in Brooklyn, New York.
NATHANIEL SHANNON AND THE VANISHING TWIN Release Show in Two Acts:
Friday – October 28th, 20016
Act 1 – 7:00 PM
Memorial for NATHANIEL SHANNON AND THE VANISHING TWIN
Get the 140-Page Book with $5 Pittance
Church Of The Ascension: 127 Kent St., Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY
Act 2 – 9:00 PM
Troost: 1011 Manhattan Ave., Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY
http://www.instagram.com/nsandthevt
http://www.twitter.com/nsandthevt
http://www.facebook.com/NSandtheVT
http://www.aqualamb.org
http://wwwaqualamb.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/aqualambrecords