Here, at Unrecorded we’re more than used to the long process that typically goes into albums, where traditional recording approaches, writing blocks, burnouts and a myriad of other circumstances can cause a record to take months or even years to be completed. Yet, there are those rare times when an LP’s creation burns bright and fast. This was the case with Paul Dunne‘s latest release, Garden Snake Coffee Brain, which was written, performed, recorded and mixed in a swift 48 hours inside a small house in the California desert. It’s an impressive feat that puts this album in the same remit as The Beatles’ Please Please Me (13 hours) and Black Sabbath’s self-titled album (12 hours). In an era when music is often polished up to an almost impossible shine, ready to be consumed and then disposed, a record like Garden Snake Coffee Brain is refreshingly different. It captures the raw, exhilarating and alive spark that fuels this Californian musician, who himself draws on garage-rock energy, indie sensibility and fuzz-soaked catharsis with a voracious appetite. Second by second, these eight tracks embody spontaneity, whilst also making way for Dunne‘s themes of self-reflection, anxiety, friendship, heartbreak and even humour. For On The Record, we caught up with Paul Dunne to ask about his unfiltered creativity, how he made an album in one weekend and what lies ahead for this determined DIY artist.
Welcome to Unrecorded! For those who aren’t already familiar with Paul Dunne, can you introduce yourself?
Hi I’m Paul ! I write, record, perform and mix all my music myself and come from a long-standing history of other solo projects (Acid Smoothie, javahead, Franciscan Honey, A Case of Mistaken Identity). I grew up in southern California, spend about a decade in Boston and now I’m back in the sunshine state.
Congratulations on the recent release of your album! For those discovering you through Garden Snake Coffee Brain for the first time, how would you describe this release in three words?
“Unrestrained cathartic fuzz”
You wrote and recorded this in just 48 hours in the desert, so at what point did you realise this wasn’t just becoming a demo session, but a fully-fledged vision?
By the fifth song I wrote on guitar I decided to write a few on bass just to see if I had anything left. Once I had something like ten core songs I realized I had maybe enough time to put the whole thing together. Lots of coffee and some partitioning of my creative time vs chill time helped form the album over the two days. I like the idea of marathoning projects – it’s a little funny ? – and wanted to see if I could do it once I reached a certain point.
What did working that quickly unlock creatively that a slower process might not have achieved?
When I take more time on an album I definitely lose some cohesion between the song themes and tone; this speed allowed me to be consistent both lyrically and sonically. I’m bipolar and those ebbs and flows of emotional availability can have an effect on creating an album when half the songs are up and the others are down. It felt proper to encapsulate one moment in time rather than a handful of sporadic moments on the wave of life.
During those blurry two days, were there any specific recording tricks, limitations or happy accidents that ended up defining the sound of this record?
The guitars were recorded through what is technically a bass amp, a 2×10 Ashen, because it’s all I had at the time. It was a very impromptu decision to record. I didn’t have a plan on what I was recording so the gear I loaded was entirely unintentional in assembly. That hasty pack-up and the subsequent unpacking once I got to the desert shaped exactly how I would decide to write and record it.
You really traverse a wide array of sounds from fuzzed-out garage rock to slacker indie to synth textures, so were there any artists that you took inspiration from?
A lot of the guitar playing was influenced by Pavement, while the driving rhythms and synths were pulled from listening to a ton of Stereolab. I’ve had a CD of Wand’s Ganglion Reef in my car and when I’d lose cell service in the desert I’d default to listening to that – it’s an album I never get tired of.
What really makes this record stand out is that sense of rawness and immediacy that can often be erased by re-writings and re-recordings in a more traditional album process. Was that spontaneity important to protect?
Absolutely. One of the greatest drawbacks to a solo project like this is the sensation of isolation, that every instrument was recorded one after another and not together as a full band. I utilized the spontaneity and put effort into having the whole album feel like a cohesive sound.
Thematically, you explore heartbreak, anxiety, anti-capitalist frustration, absurd humor and self-deprecation. Did the songs come from a specific emotional period in your life?
I drove out to the desert to record this less than a week before one of the biggest job interviews of my life, so I was definitely in a state of self-assessment. I had lost touch with some close friends, grown a lot with others, really just trying to figure out who I am as a person. That’s the whole reason I knew I had to record something when I drove out – awareness of sensitivity.
What else do you hope that listeners will take away from Garden Snake Coffee Brain?
I make music as a habit, an urge. Like, it just has to keep going or I explode (exactly like the movie Speed). With that said, I hope anyone listening is able to relate to whatever I’m feeling and can find enjoyment in the distorted sonic journey through that lens.
Following the release of this album, what will be next on the horizon for you?
I’ve been working on a second album for a bit now, definitely taking more time on it than two days. My other project [Acid Smoothie] has a compilation coming out in August of all the songs I’ve written on my 4-track cassette recorder over the years, so that might be of interest to anyone resonating with GSCB. But yeah, PDII will be an effort to feel a bit more restrained. Something between The Stooges and McCartney in execution, like speeding through an empty forest road with the windows down.
You can also listen to ‘My Alien Drank All the Beer’ in our Indie Rockers playlist.
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