Damon McMahon is a curious artist. Once upon a time a member of the indie pop & roll band Inouk, his bright guitar style and signature vocals brought some quick notices of next-big-thingdom from the rock press. Too bad they split the scene as quickly as they arrived on it. Next up was Mansions, his first solo recording issued on Astralwerks in 2006. That set felt like a non sequitur. It was full of quietly compelling notions about everyday life, small questions, and sometimes nothing at all, but it was written with a particular set of ramshackle indie rock charm and it too received decent -- if scant -- critical notice. Apparently, McMahon is a restless brand of musician. Like some of his peers in the world of indie songwriting, McMahon took a solo sojourn to the Catskills in 2006. When he returned, he came out with DIA, a wonderfully insane little record that has absolutely nothing to do with his former identity. Taking up the moniker Amen Dunes, this attempt to distance himself from his past as an artist is quite successful. This is extreme homemade psychedelia, and no matter whether the mode of expression is acoustic and free folksy (Hauling the Dead), filled with surf guitars and distortion (Amen Dunes), acid-drenched rockadelia (Fleshless Esta Mira, Wife of Space), or trancelike, trippy, and space-adelic (In Caroline and White Lace), the effect is the same -- it grabs and holds the listener's attention in a fascinating way. Taking in DIA as a whole feels not so much like a confessional diary or an exercise in outsized ambition, but exactly like what it is: a retreat from the outside world into an insular one that reaches out from inside itself to engage the hazy image of what it remembers of the outside. The final cut, Breaker, with its restrained organ, ambient sounds, and McMahon's voice simply allowing itself a free emotive wail over the top, is one of the most remarkable things to come from the D.I.Y. world in quite some time. Whether or not McMahon will -- or can, because this feels all of a moment -- follow this up with another Amen Dunes record is anybody's guess, but this one should be snapped up by any fan of the emotionally honest and musically weird school of songwriting and recording. Thanks to the Locust label for having the intelligence and faith to release this project. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

1		Amen Dunes
2		Miami Beach
3		In Caroline
4		Fleshless Esta Mira
5		Wife of Space
6		Patagonian Domes
7		By The Bridal
8		White Lace
9		Castles
10		Hauling The Dead
11		No Shot
12		2,000 Islands
13		Breaker

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