Matthew Dear rescues a ‘lost album’ inspired by his native Texas

Written over 10 years ago.

Ghostly International today announced the release of ‘Preacher’s Sigh & Potion: Lost Album’, an album that Matthew Dear composed about a decade ago but has not decided to release until now.

On a series of trips between his adoptive Detroit and his home state of Texas during 2008 and 2009, Dear amassed a set of guitar-loop-centric recordings intended for his next album. This material was archived after seeing how ‘Asa Breed’ served as a gateway for him to open for Hot Chip on their tour and to remix artists like Spoon or Postal Service. His next work was ‘Black City’ (2010) with which he achieved the praise of the press and a world tour in a band format.

This ‘lost album’ has a sound, a kind of energetic country game kept in the techno barn, and it had a rough title, a scrawl on one of the CD-Rs that was passed on to Ghostly label founder Sam Valenti IV.: ‘Preacher’s Sigh & Potion’. ‘It is an album that he never got away from at all, and he just kept moving down the road, waiting for the audience to catch up with him. More than a decade later, that moment is now,’ they say from the Ghostly headquarters.

‘I love hearing how free and raw so much of the production is. As we get older, we get stuck thinking that our production or creativity must also mature. Some of that is inevitable, but listening to these songs reminds me not to think. So much. It’s important to be in that world without consequences from time to time,’ confesses Matthew Dear.

This was the first time that Dear tapped so directly into his late father’s influence as a guitarist in the 1960s and ’70s and a gateway to the music of John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, and Emmylou Harris. ‘On a trip to Austin, I took some of my father’s gear and tried to compose a song using what I knew about techno arrangements, but I used his guitars and various small instruments to create a more organic, loop-based sound. I’d say it was him, beginning this album. I realized that I could apply what I had been doing on the computer to the other music that I loved and grew up with.’

Matthew Dear’s ‘Preacher’s Sigh & Potion: Lost Album’ will be out on June 25th, via Ghostly International. Listen to a couple of previews below, and check out the album artwork.

Tracklist:

1. Muscle Beach
2. Sow Down
3. Hikers Y
4. Never Divide
5. All Her Fits
6. Supper Times
7. Crash And Burn
8. Heart To Sing
9. Eye
10. Head
11. Gutters And Beyond