BACKGROUND ON ARTIST/ALBUM:
David Turpin’s first
album, the stark, secretive The Sweet Used-to-be,
was among the most critically acclaimed
Irish debuts of 2008. Now he returns
with Haunted! Earning
its exclamation mark with 11 boundlessly inventive,
sparklingly melodic songs, Turpin’s sophomore
offering is the Oz to his debut’s Kansas.
Haunted! is a wide-ranging but focused
pop record that combines the conceptual rigor of
Laurie Anderson, the open-hearted experimentation
of Arthur Russell, and the oddly soothing spookiness
of The Cure with the taut rhythms of contemporary
R&B and electro.
Drawing upon a set of songs largely whipped up
in eerie isolation at the foot of Co. Carlow’s
Blackstairs Mountains, Turpin completed the album
over a period of 18 months. The end result
is seamless, bound together by Turpin’s own
meticulous production and luscious co-production
and mix work by Stephen Shannon, acclaimed studio
magician and member of Choice Prize-nominated band
Halfset. |
Guests on the album
include Cathy Davey, who lends her singular vocals
to ‘The Red Elk’, and Conor O’Brien
of hotly-tipped act Villagers, who contributes
guitar to four songs and sings on a fifth. The
album’s swelling strings come from virtuoso
player Cora Venus Lunny, who contributed up to
60 layers of violin and viola apiece to seven songs.
The infernally catchy ‘The Bone Dance’ will
precede the album as a radio and Internet promo
single. The second single, ‘Dorothy
Gale’ will follow the album in early November.
David Turpin and his live band will launch Haunted! with
a performance at the Hugh Lane Municipal Art Gallery,
Dublin, on October 9, 2009. Turpin will be
first pop musician ever to play such a show in the
gallery’s Sculpture Hall.
LIVE DATES:
October 9 – Hugh
Lane Gallery, Dublin
November 7 - Whelans, Dublin
/ More TBC |
