Silhouettes at Dawn

VINYL FORMAT. Staring into tears of heartbreak, loss, mythological hallucinations, and war torn landscapes, the Singleman Affair continues upon their path of downer folk and psychedelic melancholy, preying upon their familiar cohort of influences - Fred Neil, Nick Drake, Skip Spence, and John Martyn - crafting their very own sonic landscapes and vision. Unveiling a dynamic shift from the Alan McGee released Let's Kill the Summer and its lo-fi bedroom recordings, Silhouettes at Dawn is a lush, orchestrated arrangement, accented by diverse instrumentation bringing to mind Love's Forever Changes, Leonard Cohen's New Skin for the Old Ceremony, Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief or Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left.

With mythological tales of half bird/half human winged lovers sacrificing their wings to free themselves of the shackles of life; to tales of fallen soldiers, wishing they could have had one last moment of affection or even a kiss from some meaningless relationship, while they were still young, instead of slowly dying alone - Silhouettes at Dawn is The Singleman Affair's three year epic journey through pain staking self-realization and emotion. From beginning to end, it weaves itself through tales of escapism and hopelessness, all awhile maintaining an almost delusional sense of bliss. With deep heavy hearts and worried acid trip tongues there are more ideals to be met and fall short of again. Working with long time drummer and studio engineer Graeme Gibson they took on the role of classic producer, recording all of the material at Clava Studio on the south side of Chicago. Recording and re-recording demos, manipulating tape sounds, experimenting with different plate reverbs, they allowed themselves the luxury of exploring the music in greater depth to get both inside and outside of the music in order to re-imagine it. The album hosts a whole slew of guest stars, including guitarist Emmett Kelly and double bassist Josh Abrams of the Bonnie 'Prince' Billy band, fiddle and multi-instrumentalist Jim Becker and drummer Joe Adamik of Califone and Iron & Wine, and pedal steel guitarist Gary Pyskacek of the Pedal Steel Transmission. Past and present Fruit Bats' Gillian Lissee and Sam Wagster sang backup and added more guitar, and Mark Messing of Mucca Pazza contributes lush string arrangements to give the album its diverse and distinct sound. All of these contributors helped shape the sonic qualities of the Silhouettes at Dawn.