South African-born, Germany-residing artist Adam Donen announces Bible Stories (out April 17), his fifth album and first release of songs in over a decade.
To be filed alongside the likes of Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Nick Cave, the first single and the album’s opener, ‘What Doesn’t End‘ (out now), is particularly Leonard-like in its darkly poetic lyricism, sparse soundscapes, and Donen’s raspy, world-wearing bass baritone. Its simplicity may stem from its origins. “The whole thing, inclusive of the line breaks, was written on a mobile phone during one of my daily walks,” explains Donen. The accompanying video, shot by Donen in a what appears to be a fantastic VFX landscape looking down on clouds, holds the same sparse, haunted beauty as the song and was filmed (without any effects) on the same route through the Black Forest and up a mountain in Donen’s hometown of Baden-Baden, Germany.
The walk followed a visit from Donen’s long-term music collaborator, Robert Harder (Brian Eno, David Byrne, Whitey, Soho Dolls), who found him in a state Donen reflects as “a mental, physical and spiritual emptiness.” Harder prescribed the following: ‘Stop trying to work on a gigantic scale; Stop trying to control everything; Write eight songs, but the chords, melody and lyrics only; and come to Joshua Tree’.
Bible Stories is a salvation story of sorts, born from turbulent times. The songs came very quickly, with many lyrics written whilst Donen took his daily three-and-a-half-hour walk up and down Merkur mountain. The accompanying music was, in keeping with Harder’s firm instructions, mostly written simply as strummed rhythm guitar, and recorded as demos in Donen’s lounge. All the while, Harder gathered an array of brilliant musicians just as he promised, including Bobby Furgo from Leonard Cohen’s old band, and electric double bass virtuoso Janie Cowan, with Bible Stories, an album Donen refers to as his “most cohesive work”, coming to life in Harder Sound studio, Joshua Tree, on Donen’s arrival.
TRACKLIST:
What Doesn’t End
I’m Ready for the Next World (But the Next World Ain’t Ready for Me)
Let Me Cry Come Unto Me
Bible Stories
Op 4 No 1 (Sovegna Vos)
Fun Times in Clowntown
The Shortest Distance Between Two Points
Beneath A Grey, Ordinary Sky
There’s something of Cohen in the sparse and poetic opener and first single ‘What Doesn’t End’ and the subtly inebriated sea-shanty feel of ‘Let My Cry Come Unto Thee’ which fuses the religious (the refrain is Psalm 102 by way of Eliot’s ‘Ash Wednesday’) and the romantic. “Cohen is the master, of course, though King Solomon in the Song of Songs probably comes a decent second”, says Donen. (Hear also the irreverent ‘Fun Times In Clowntown’ with its refrain ‘that old town religion is good enough for me’ delivered with a hearty bitterness).
Donen’s deep, gravelly bass-baritone throughout is world-weary and utterly captivating, and makes him a fitting narrator for the dark, spiritual storytelling found on Bible Stories, an album Donen describes as: “A series of postcards to friends and fellow-travellers, sent from after the end-times. It’s a religious album (or just straight-out prayers, if one’s to be less materialist about it) by a devout but confused Christian atheist. It’s an attempt to write love and pain honestly, without camouflaging it in biography and fact.”
Bible Stories (unsurprisingly given its title) has its fair share of fire and brimstone gospel-blues, such as on the self-explanatory ‘I’m Ready for the Next World (But the Next World Ain’t Ready for Me)’. “There’s a freedom, though a nasty, cruel, selfish one, to be found in discovering oneself completely unmoored,” says Donen. (On a lighter note, the song features ZZ Top’s La Grange in the fourth chorus). Bible Stories throughout has a wild energy, simmering and deliciously foreboding. Loss, longing, and a pitiless god are never far from the album’s surface, creating a strange brew felt on a visceral level, as if one can channel Donen’s suffering and ultimate salvation through listening. Pour the whiskey, dim the lights, and turn up the music.
‘What Doesn’t End’ is out now on all digital streaming platforms. The long-player Bible Stories (pre-save) follows on April 17, digitally and on vinyl via Heldenplatz.
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