ANDERS PARKER
anders parker - wolves (music video)
single - "sunyata"
full album - Wolf Reckoning
downloads
anders parker - 'Wolf Reckoning' (wav) download
ANDERS PARKER - 'WOLF RECKONING' (mp3) DOWNLOAD
Wolf Reckoning
Hello, welcome to the album bio. Sit down, have a drink. Or a smoke. Cup of tea? This won’t take long. I’m pimping my new record. It’s a dirty business. I’ll try to make it as concise as possible.
Hill Country Krautrock…. Ok, ok, hear me out.
A couple of years ago I became fixated on what I see as the relationship between Hill Country Blues and so called Krautrock. In my mind they come from the same psychic root. Both are droning hypnotic driving sinuous (human, robotic) rhythms. Endless (back roads and autobahns of) grooves that transport you somewhere, physically metaphysically.
Wolf Reckoning isn’t an album of Hill Country Krautrock. No. But that space dust is there in the cosmology of this collection of songs, part of the little bang-klang of creation. As usually happens things morph as work begins. But perhaps you can hear this idea most in the second song from the album, Down at the Museum. And then again on the last song, Terlingua. And a few others.
I started this album in a farmhouse on a hilltop in the Catskill mountains of New York. I finished it below sea level in the city of New Orleans, my new home as of 2019. There were stops along the way in Brooklyn, NY and Athens, GA as well as remote tracking from Texas, Washington, and Vermont. I had friends help on a number of the tunes, some of the songs I played everything myself.
Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave) mixed the album in London, England. Originally he planned to do all the mixing “in the box”, but he was inspired to mix it through his piles of analog gear onto TAPE (you know, old fashioned analog tape) to give it that extra “mwah” (*chef’s kiss*).
Thanks for spending a few minutes to read this. I hope you enjoy the album.
Anders Parker
July 9, 2021
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THOUGHTS ON SUNYATA by Anders Parker
Sunyata has different specific meanings depending on which religion/philosophy it is being seen through. I like this from Oxford reference: In Buddhism, the doctrine that phenomena are devoid of an immutable or determinate intrinsic nature. It is often regarded as a means of gaining an intuition of ultimate reality. The word comes from Sanskrit śūnyatā ‘emptiness’.
Sunyata is the last song I wrote for the album. I had camped out at my friend’s tiny house in the Treme section of New Orleans to finish some other songs and as often happens when “working” on a song a new, completely different song, pops out, unbidden. Sometimes in the process of “working” on songs I kind of drift into a bit of a trance and start noodling on something while thinking about the “work”. All of a sudden this new thing feels more important and electric than what I was laboring over. Often the best songs appear this way, when not thinking or anticipating, i.e. “working”.
So this song appeared and I had been thinking about this Buddest concept of emptiness, devoid of desire for material wealth or different circumstances or want of anything, and free from regret or shame about things in the past, and also not anxious or concerned or worried about what the future might hold. Ultimately I suppose it’s about really truly being in the moment. An easy thing to write about, maybe not so easy to achieve and maintain. But I guess that’s where music is related to this concept…. at its best, when playing or writing, there is nothing but that moment and that’s a good place to be.
-----
The rare troubadour touches rock and roll with the depth and candor and scope of Anders Parker.
He entered the scene in the mid 90’s when a 4-track recording he made in his Portland, OR apartment, titled Man of Sin, got passed around. Doing it himself and his way and with the energy that album had to offer, Parker formed a band and began walking a trail that has defined his life. As the leader/songwriter/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist and under the moniker Varnaline, Parker toured, eventually released 5 albums under that name. Parker entered the indie lexicon.
As all things do, Varnaline ran its course, beginning phase two of Anders artistry, releasing albums under his own name. Tell It To The Dust and Anders Parker (s/t) set about to give air to Parkers unsettling need to explore genres, pushing forward his even more intensely weathered views on life and love. Skyscraper Crow is a double album exploring electronic instruments on one album, acoustic instrument on the other — dualities and double meanings, abstraction and fixed stars. With Cross Latitudes, Parker released his first fully instrumental album of electric guitar pieces. There’s A Bluebird In My Heart tracks back to formal songwriting veering from ballads to scorched earth rock.
In 2017 Parker release The Man Who Fell From Earth, a collection of acoustic songs accompanied by a string trio and pedal steel. The album quietly explodes with orchestration layered over his classically dark lyrics, hinting a new love and even more questions about the universe and our place in it all. Truly a stunning album from start to finish, it is the beginning of yet another phase in the outrageously gifted songwriters life.
Also in the mix (and adding to his pedigree) is New Multitudes, the highly acclaimed project with Jim James, Jay Farrar and Will Johnson, where Woody Guthrie lyrics were paired with new music; an album of traditional folk songs again with Farrar under the moniker Gob Iron; a record of indie-Americana duets with Kendall Meade under the name Anders & Kendall; and membership in the influential experimental rock band Space Needle.
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“An intuitive, emerging classicist destined to carve out his own chapter.” “a poignant, articulate voice…superb, emotional”
— Magnet Magazine
“Country-rock dipped in LSD? Anders Parker is a tough one to pin down. His songs weave somewhere around the Beatles, Neil Young, Husker Du and the Minutemen, to name a few.”
— HARP
“Rock’s ancient history offers few examples of wayward talent somehow left alone to pursue an eccentric, uncommercial vision: Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Skip Spence’s Oar, and anything by Syd Barrett…. there’s no denying the visceral pull of Parker’s plaintive vocals, and uncluttered naked emotion…”
— London Sunday Times
…his music could be categorized as “alt-classic.”… he distinguishes himself with his songwriting, through a combination of craft, conviction and open ended wonder.
— No Depression
“Anders Parker is the kind of artist whose work, at whatever point you happen to be exposed to it first, will lure you to seek out the rest.”
“Like the soft-spoken friend who astounds you once you finally train your ears to pay attention. The songs turn down flashy for something much more welcome and rare: enduring.”
— Pop Matters
Hello, welcome to the album bio. Sit down, have a drink. Or a smoke. Cup of tea? This won’t take long. I’m pimping my new record. It’s a dirty business. I’ll try to make it as concise as possible.
Hill Country Krautrock…. Ok, ok, hear me out.
A couple of years ago I became fixated on what I see as the relationship between Hill Country Blues and so called Krautrock. In my mind they come from the same psychic root. Both are droning hypnotic driving sinuous (human, robotic) rhythms. Endless (back roads and autobahns of) grooves that transport you somewhere, physically metaphysically.
Wolf Reckoning isn’t an album of Hill Country Krautrock. No. But that space dust is there in the cosmology of this collection of songs, part of the little bang-klang of creation. As usually happens things morph as work begins. But perhaps you can hear this idea most in the second song from the album, Down at the Museum. And then again on the last song, Terlingua. And a few others.
I started this album in a farmhouse on a hilltop in the Catskill mountains of New York. I finished it below sea level in the city of New Orleans, my new home as of 2019. There were stops along the way in Brooklyn, NY and Athens, GA as well as remote tracking from Texas, Washington, and Vermont. I had friends help on a number of the tunes, some of the songs I played everything myself.
Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave) mixed the album in London, England. Originally he planned to do all the mixing “in the box”, but he was inspired to mix it through his piles of analog gear onto TAPE (you know, old fashioned analog tape) to give it that extra “mwah” (*chef’s kiss*).
Thanks for spending a few minutes to read this. I hope you enjoy the album.
Anders Parker
July 9, 2021
-----
THOUGHTS ON SUNYATA by Anders Parker
Sunyata has different specific meanings depending on which religion/philosophy it is being seen through. I like this from Oxford reference: In Buddhism, the doctrine that phenomena are devoid of an immutable or determinate intrinsic nature. It is often regarded as a means of gaining an intuition of ultimate reality. The word comes from Sanskrit śūnyatā ‘emptiness’.
Sunyata is the last song I wrote for the album. I had camped out at my friend’s tiny house in the Treme section of New Orleans to finish some other songs and as often happens when “working” on a song a new, completely different song, pops out, unbidden. Sometimes in the process of “working” on songs I kind of drift into a bit of a trance and start noodling on something while thinking about the “work”. All of a sudden this new thing feels more important and electric than what I was laboring over. Often the best songs appear this way, when not thinking or anticipating, i.e. “working”.
So this song appeared and I had been thinking about this Buddest concept of emptiness, devoid of desire for material wealth or different circumstances or want of anything, and free from regret or shame about things in the past, and also not anxious or concerned or worried about what the future might hold. Ultimately I suppose it’s about really truly being in the moment. An easy thing to write about, maybe not so easy to achieve and maintain. But I guess that’s where music is related to this concept…. at its best, when playing or writing, there is nothing but that moment and that’s a good place to be.
-----
The rare troubadour touches rock and roll with the depth and candor and scope of Anders Parker.
He entered the scene in the mid 90’s when a 4-track recording he made in his Portland, OR apartment, titled Man of Sin, got passed around. Doing it himself and his way and with the energy that album had to offer, Parker formed a band and began walking a trail that has defined his life. As the leader/songwriter/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist and under the moniker Varnaline, Parker toured, eventually released 5 albums under that name. Parker entered the indie lexicon.
As all things do, Varnaline ran its course, beginning phase two of Anders artistry, releasing albums under his own name. Tell It To The Dust and Anders Parker (s/t) set about to give air to Parkers unsettling need to explore genres, pushing forward his even more intensely weathered views on life and love. Skyscraper Crow is a double album exploring electronic instruments on one album, acoustic instrument on the other — dualities and double meanings, abstraction and fixed stars. With Cross Latitudes, Parker released his first fully instrumental album of electric guitar pieces. There’s A Bluebird In My Heart tracks back to formal songwriting veering from ballads to scorched earth rock.
In 2017 Parker release The Man Who Fell From Earth, a collection of acoustic songs accompanied by a string trio and pedal steel. The album quietly explodes with orchestration layered over his classically dark lyrics, hinting a new love and even more questions about the universe and our place in it all. Truly a stunning album from start to finish, it is the beginning of yet another phase in the outrageously gifted songwriters life.
Also in the mix (and adding to his pedigree) is New Multitudes, the highly acclaimed project with Jim James, Jay Farrar and Will Johnson, where Woody Guthrie lyrics were paired with new music; an album of traditional folk songs again with Farrar under the moniker Gob Iron; a record of indie-Americana duets with Kendall Meade under the name Anders & Kendall; and membership in the influential experimental rock band Space Needle.
-----
“An intuitive, emerging classicist destined to carve out his own chapter.” “a poignant, articulate voice…superb, emotional”
— Magnet Magazine
“Country-rock dipped in LSD? Anders Parker is a tough one to pin down. His songs weave somewhere around the Beatles, Neil Young, Husker Du and the Minutemen, to name a few.”
— HARP
“Rock’s ancient history offers few examples of wayward talent somehow left alone to pursue an eccentric, uncommercial vision: Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, Skip Spence’s Oar, and anything by Syd Barrett…. there’s no denying the visceral pull of Parker’s plaintive vocals, and uncluttered naked emotion…”
— London Sunday Times
…his music could be categorized as “alt-classic.”… he distinguishes himself with his songwriting, through a combination of craft, conviction and open ended wonder.
— No Depression
“Anders Parker is the kind of artist whose work, at whatever point you happen to be exposed to it first, will lure you to seek out the rest.”
“Like the soft-spoken friend who astounds you once you finally train your ears to pay attention. The songs turn down flashy for something much more welcome and rare: enduring.”
— Pop Matters