Reed Burnam - Ten Dollar Recording Co.

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A collection of short songs about lost cats, bad coffee, acute depression, summer heatwaves, deceased songwriters, and my complete disdain for conspicuous consumption. All events depicted herein are true to the best of my ability to recall, unless they aren’t.

Reed Burnam's most recent solo album Universal Axis (out August 2020 on Portland's Ten Dollar Recording Company) is his 22nd solo record since the year 2000, and his second for TDRCO - the first being 2016's understated and minimalist Another Switchback. Home recorded and hand produced like most of his other material over the last two decades, Universal Axis is decidedly more upbeat, taking a strong cue from irreverent 90's outfits such as Smog, early Ween, Guided By Voices, Mountain Goats, and the Frogs. From the country roadhouse rock of "Truck Stop Coffee" and the DMT shimmer of "Sunlight Gonna Shine in My Window" and "The Ghost of John Fahey", to the cut and paste afro-futurism of "Lined Up" and late night ravers like "Y'all Ready 2 Party" and "I Bought a New Rug Today", Universal Axis just might have something in there that you can dig, if you can dig it, dig? As a rule, Reed's solo output generally barn burns through a patchwork stylistic mobius strip bridging mescaline folk, refracted world music, machine noise, ambient soundscapes, classic video game music, tongue-in-cheek EDM, blackened metal, bubblegum pop, country zen, and whatever else sounds good in the moment, all run through a fiercely do-it-yourself psychedelic blender.

Houston born and raised, long-time denizen of Central Texas, and with some residential stints in Southern California and Northern India over the years, Reed continues to use breaks in between traveling to record profusely in his bedroom studio hidden somewhere in the suburban sprawl of Austin. In July 2020 he released the Deconstructing Expectations in an Era of Boredom EP (available exclusively via www.reedburnam.bandcamp.com), with select tracks being featured on the recent TDRCO compilation Ten Dollar Friday Night. He is currently working on an LP of new material tentatively titled Killing Time in the Eternal Now, along with a reimagining of his first solo record, 2000's country-laden Gathering Places and Watering Holes. Both are slated for early 2021.

All instruments and voice by Reed
All songs by Reed
Production by Reed
Mastering by Tom Nunes at Atomic Disc in Salem, OR
Recorded at Redirection Studios, Austin, TX
Summer 2018 - Spring 2020

VIDEO: "Universal Axis"

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Another Switchback was originally written in its entirety over a swelteringly hot weekend in Austin, TX in the Summer of 2005, on an acoustic guitar directly into a shitty little tape recorder. All songs were on-the-spot composed in stream of consciousness sessions and are not very structurally different in their final, 2016 recorded versions from how they were originally improvised.

After close to a decade, Another Switchback had yet to be properly recorded as originally intended. So in late 2014 Reed flew up to Portland, OR to record it with the prolific folk at Ten Dollar Recording Co. Initial sessions went unfinished until the Summer of 2016, and the album was finally released in early 2017.

Initially conceived as a larger than life, messy, lo-fi rock record ala 90's GBV or Pavement, Another Switchback came out really different than originally expected given the 11 years that had passed since its inception. And for the better. Rather than loud and discordant, it came out much more quiet and reflective with the years behind it, tracing the arc of everything that lives and grows under the sun. Thanks for listening.

Recorded 2014 - 2016 for Ten Dollar Recording Company at the Continental Control Unit in Portland, OR. Many thanks to Redirection Records in Austin, TX.