Daphne's Demise is the work of Zoë S-Bouffard and includes the contributions of many musicians. Zoë is based in Sarnia, Ontario (pretty close to Detroit). "The Heart is a Garden" is the newest release from Daphne's Demise and is described by Raven Sings The Blues as "Coming on like The Concretes gone country". Zoë's voice does recall Victoria Bergsman, but the gentle songs also remind me a bit of Nico or Vashti Bunyan.
While this is being released on cassette by Oklahoma label Scissor Tail Records (who also have a fantastic discography including a couple of Souled American LPs), Perpetual Doom also mentions this release on their website and does have a digital release available on Bandcamp. But, so does Daphne's Demise on their Bandcamp.
The Scissor Tail Records cassette does have two bonus tracks.
David Ivan Neil is a singer/songwriter out of British Columbia who hoes his own row of outsider folk music in which he seeks the infinite among the wilds of the mundane. For over a decade he has nurtured the flame of creative practice in the nooks and crannies afforded by the life of a working parent, leaving behind a trail of shambling, homespun albums across the internet. His new tape, I Hope Yer OK, found a sympathetic home on the immaculately curated slacker-folk-rock label Perpetual Doom. Rising to the occasion, it is the best produced work in his lengthy catalog, boasting the barest studio sheen and a tight, stripped-back honky-stoner band, the A OK Players, who lend urgency and back-beat movement to DIN’s emotionally zoomed-in half-slurred confessionals.
DIN’s music, like that of his north star inspiration Daniel Johnston (name-checked in the liner notes of the physical product) has never had trouble getting its point across even under the most minimal recording circumstances. This album, however, demonstrates that sweetening that pot never hurts — the locked in rhythm section and touches like keyboards, woodwinds, strings and backup vocal arrangements push things further into a zone of accessibility and beyond the immediate Daniel Johnston “outsider” association. Hints of past literary anti-folk heroes such as Jeffrey Lewis and David Berman, whose Silver Jews jam “K-Hole” is covered here, pop up, but DIN is determined to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground in the dirt-patched yard with the cigarette butts and beer cans rather than let his head float too high into clouds of verbose metaphor.
I Hope Yer OK begins with what feels like a thesis statement for the album, “Drums,” a love song about frustration that centers on the almost shouted refrain “I wanna play the drums, I wanna play ‘em loud.” The band engages in a string and woodwind backed lope here that recalls a less restrained Woods band when they assumed the role of David Berman’s backing unit on Purple Mountains. However, where Berman’s fire for life seems tragically all but put out on that album, DIN sings with an unhinged, manic glee, clearly “happy to be alive” — a line which is found later in the song “Haircut” — despite the madness inducing moebius strip of disappointment that a regular life can feel like. You can always bang on a drum kit, listen to the cymbals sizzle, that beautiful noise and physical exertion has the potential to bring everything back to center.
The song “Haircut” continues this theme, covering a bleary hungover day that requires a couple different restarts and revisions over a lo-fi country ramble with accents of mandolin. Fatherhood and house maintenance, getting old and hangovers hitting harder, observing with resignation that the relentless march of time is a reminder that life has been worth living. Something as simple as a haircut can be a transformation, or maybe it can’t. You’re the same person, you could never be anyone different, and that’s ok. You’re alive, you love, and you are loved, and all this stuff that’s pissing you off, all this work you must do, proves it.
The lead single from I Hope Yer OK and its penultimate shot at the windmill of the indifferent universe is the joyous and fatalistic “Used to Only Win,” an unanswerable demand to the void to give us back what we think we deserve when the petty losses and indignities of life keep adding up. It’s darkly funny subject matter that contrasts with the bouncy piano, electric guitar and woodwinds that float it along. The sweet, polished music combined with sour, reeling imagery is another nod to Purple Mountains, which seems to loom large over the full-band approach DIN takes with the A OK Players. It works as a thematic mirror to the statement made in the title of the album – we hope we’re all ok, we all know we aren’t, we know no one is getting all of what they need or deserve. The best we can do is hit the drums or sing at the top of our lungs, or maybe “drink until my piss-bag is full up,” until it all feels little bit better.
Perpetual Doom is really churning out some high quality releases. We recently posted about Richard Tripps, Lee Baggett and Little Wings.
Blaine Todd's new release, the well-titled "Goodby 'Til I Do Good By You" is their newest release and it sounds like a great mash up of Johnny Cash, Dick Stusso, Lee Hazelwood and R.W. Hedges. It has a beautiful country feel while still retaining a completely modern sound (with the exception of Robert Wyatt's "Just As You Are").
Believe it or not, Blaine Todd is based in the Bay Area (California). Perpetual Doom clearly has a connection there.
I've been spending some time on the Perpetual Doom website of late. I purchased the two first Richard Tripps albums on my own recommendation. Earlier this year we also posted about the excellent music of Lee Baggett.
In the same vein comes "High On The Glade" by Little Wings (San Francisco-ish, California). Really, Little Wings is the vehicle for the music of Kyle Field who has played music with Rodriguez, Grandaddy, and the aforementioned Lee Baggett. He has been making music as Little Wings since the 1990s.
I can't help but think of the music of fellow Bay Area band Dick Stusso. Perpetual Doom refers to Little Wings new LP as "the Golden State’s mercurial troubadour, is back with a vengeance—songs of vaudeville and villainy, renewal and rebirth."
Lee Baggett is a Philippine born artist who has been releasing music for 20 years. "Echo on Me" was released in December 2023 on New Hope, Pennsylvania based label Perpetual Doom. This label has released works by Bill Baird and Thee Conductor. These two artists have a lot in common with Baggett's sound.
I would also mention Dick Stusso and The Tyde. The tags on the Bandcamp page also help describe the music: cosmic americana, cosmic country, and new weird america.
Eric Terino debuts his latest single and video for "Body Gets Stoned," taken from his upcoming release out this March on Perpetual Doom.
Dive in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1uxuDNnUQQ&feature=youtu.be
Listen in here:https://perpetualdoom.bandcamp.com/track/body-gets-stoned
https://open.spotify.com/track/34ir47QmH1Ahd4v7pG4Ksv?si=00577a2b01d4491a
Pre-order Eric Terino’s album: https://perpetualdoom.bandcamp.com/album/innovations-of-grave-perversity
Tapping into the rich timeless history of romance and poetics, Eric Terino’s musical landscape paints a portrait of an American artist with a sweeping perspective on what it means to be human. The deeply personal becomes universal and heartbreak can be transformed to healing. Similar in fashion to Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, his tales of suffering mend with beauty. Gilding the places we have been hurt as a means of moving forward. This potential for alchemy exists everywhere, and Terino’s serenaded solitude reminds us of the infinite beauty in it all.
Eric shares of the single:“‘Body Gets Stoned’ is sort of my take on a ‘Que Sera Sera’ (Doris Day’s 1956 hit from Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’). Basically, it’s a Buddhist kind of mentality that all is as it is and will be as it will be. So there’s no point in fighting upstream. Ultimately the solution to any struggle is in letting the river take us where we need to go, which in my opinion… is home.”
The upcoming Innovations of Grave Perversity is Eric Terino’s third long player, and by any measure is his most expansive and layered work. Taking charge from where his sophomore record left off, the album is a parallel journey through the passage of seasons (winter into spring) and the transition from despondency to the birth of new hope and healing. It is a record about attempting to find light in the wake of trauma and working to reframe one’s life in a way that allows for the possibility of joy.
“Body Gets Stoned” was written by Terino nearly 15 years ago and features stirring violin and vocals from Jolie Holland, whose contribution allowed for the track to finally feel complete and ready to be properly documented.
Innovations of Grave Perversity is out March 11 on Perpetual Doom.
