Fresh Stream

DANNY AND THE NIGHTMARES “Mentally Ill”

by

death

I’ve been a fan of Daniel Johnston‘s for a long time. Back in my “indie pop phase” (snicker away) this man’s music was some of the deepest reaching that I came into contact with. The times I’ve seen him live it hasn’t been that great, but this is the nature of Daniel Johnston. I do hope to see a great concert from him some day, but we’ll see. Unknown to me, having been out of the Johnston fold for some time, Daniel has put out a few records with a rocking backing band as DANNY AND THE NIGHTMARES. Great fucking name. Well, they just released a new record called DEATH OF SATAN, that isn’t actually that new having been recorded five years ago. Since that recording one of the members passed away, and in line with that sad fact the band has declared DANNY AND THE NIGHTMARES dead as well. It’s really too bad once you get into this music and realize how grittily charming it is. The production is of low fidelity, Daniel’s voice creaking atop a wash of jangling guitars, backing vocals, and various overdubbed strings that belong just where they are in the mix, a facet of the overall hissing, scuzz splattered jangle rock landscape. “Mentally Ill” sounds pretty much like a gnarly version of Daniel fronting the VELVET UNDERGROUND, who of course saw its onetime leader pass away this week. There’s not too too much separating this from current sounds in the American, and especially Australian undergrounds. Daniel Johnston still making it happen all these years gone by. DEATH OF SATAN is out now on the great Spanish label MUNSTER RECORDS.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License(unless otherwise indicated) © 2019