Today, Damien Jurado’s Waters Ave S, his beloved debut, is available on vinyl for the first time in years from Sub Pop.
2022 promises to be a banner year for Damien Jurado. Not only does the year mark the songwriter’s 50th birthday, but it also sees the summer release of his 18th studio album, the impressionistic and tuneful Reggae Film Star. And hang on, there’s more: on September 23rd, 2022 Sub Pop Records reissues Jurado’s debut full-length, 1997’s Waters Ave S. The work of a young artist driven by complex inner visions, the LP offers a fresh chance to examine how far Jurado has come in the 25 years since its release—but also demonstrates how much of his point of view and vivid scenecraft was firmly in place from the very start.
A veteran of the DIY punk and hardcore scenes, Jurado had begun taking steps into the world of lo-fi home recording. But with renowned indie rock producer Steve Fisk acting as producer, Waters Ave S introduced Jurado to the independent music world, presenting a set of 13 songs that encompass odes to remote desert outposts, late-night conversations with Elvis, a purple anteater, and the great beyond. Though new to the studio, Jurado’s storytelling lens is well honed; these compositions are filled with characters wandering the psychic wilderness, flawed but nonetheless certain of themselves, or at least certain enough.
Those only familiar with Jurado’s ambient-tinged folk or AM gold psychedelia will find the album more punky than expected, replete with post-punk basslines, electric guitars, and a youthful tenor to Jurado’s voice. But what’s most striking about the record is how fully formed his world is, especially on songs like the lilting, drum looped “Angel of May,” the sci-fi “Space Age Mom,” and mournful simplicity of the title track. Jurado was just getting started, but the path he’d follow seems laid out by Waters Ave S. 25 years later, it’s clear that the creative spirit that fuels this idiosyncratic and exuberant record is one that still propels Jurado to this day.
Waters Ave S is available on vinyl now from Sub Pop through megamart.sub pop.com, select independent retailers in North America, the UK and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on aqua vinyl (while supplies last).
Damien Jurado
Waters Ave S
Tracklisting
1. Wedding Cake
2. Angel of May
3. Treasures of Gold
4. Yuma, AZ
5. The Joke Is Over
6. Space Age Mom
7. Circus, Circus, Circus
8. Hell or Highwater
9. Independent
10. Purple Anteater
11. Sarah
12. Halo Friendly
13. Waters Ave S.
On Friday, September 23rd, 2022, Damien Jurado’s Waters Ave S, his beloved debut, will be available on vinyl for the first time in years from Sub Pop. To celebrate today’s news, Damien has scheduled an interview and performance with 90.3 KEXP today, which airs at 4:30 pm PT / 7:30 pm ET.
2022 promises to be a banner year for Damien Jurado. Not only does the year mark the songwriter’s 50th birthday, but it also sees the summer release of his 18th studio album, the impressionistic and tuneful Reggae Film Star. And hang on, there’s more: on September 23rd, 2022 Sub Pop Records reissues Jurado’s debut full-length, 1997’s Waters Ave S. The work of a young artist driven by complex inner visions, the LP offers a fresh chance to examine how far Jurado has come in the 25 years since its release—but also demonstrates how much of his point of view and vivid scenecraft was firmly in place from the very start.
A veteran of the DIY punk and hardcore scenes, Jurado had begun taking steps into the world of lo-fi home recording. But with renowned indie rock producer Steve Fisk acting as producer, Waters Ave S introduced Jurado to the independent music world, presenting a set of 13 songs that encompass odes to remote desert outposts, late night conversations with Elvis, a purple anteater, and the great beyond. Though new to the studio, Jurado’s storytelling lens is well honed; these compositions are filled with characters wandering the psychic wilderness, flawed but nonetheless certain of themselves, or at least certain enough.
Those only familiar with Jurado’s ambient-tinged folk or AM gold psychedelia will find the album more punky than expected, replete with post-punk basslines, electric guitars, and a youthful tenor to Jurado’s voice. But what’s most striking about the record is how fully formed his world is, especially on songs like the lilting, drum looped “Angel of May,” the sci-fi “Space Age Mom,” and mournful simplicity of the title track. Jurado was just getting started, but the path he’d follow seems laid out by Waters Ave S. 25 years later, it’s clear that the creative spirit that fuels this idiosyncratic and exuberant record is one that still propels Jurado to this day.
Waters Ave S is available for preorder on vinyl now from Sub Pop. LP preorders through megamart.sub pop.com, select independent retailers in North America, the UK and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on aqua vinyl (while supplies last).
Damien Jurado
Waters Ave S
Tracklisting
1. Wedding Cake
2. Angel of May
3. Treasures of Gold
4. Yuma, AZ
5. The Joke Is Over
6. Space Age Mom
7. Circus, Circus, Circus
8. Hell or Highwater
9. Independent
10. Purple Anteater
11. Sarah
12. Halo Friendly
13. Waters Ave S.
How it feels to be someone who preorders a coveted, long out of print Sunny Day Real Estate album on vinyl: FREAKIN’AMAZING.
As of Friday, August 5, 2016, Sunny Day Real Estate’s first three albums will now be available on cassette, as well as a vinyl repress of How It Feels To Be Something On, back in print for the first time in too many years.
About How It Feels To Be Something On:
In 1997, Sub Pop approached Sunny Day’s members for help in compiling a rarities album. Because there were so few usable tracks, band founders Jeremy Enigk and Dan Hoerner agreed to get together and write some new material to augment the archival songs, but they wound up crafting an entire new album in a matter of days.
Without Mendel, who remains with Foo Fighters to this day, Sunny Day reunited to recordHow It Feels to Be Something On. After 2000’s The Rising Tide, the band split, with Mendel continuing his work with the Foo Fighters, though Enigk, Goldsmith, and Mendel did reconvene to record an album under the name The Fire Theft in 2003. Sunny Day Real Estate reunited for a series of shows in 2010.
[Sunny Day Real Estate : How It Feels To Be Something On]
[Sunny Day Real Estate cassettes : How It Feels To Be Something On - LP2 - Diary
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Feels like the first time. BECAUSE IT IS! Damien Jurado classics
’Ghost of David’ and ’Rehearsals For Departure’ have, at long last, been pressed
to vinyl. YES, FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME EVER. You’ll find these beloved titles in finer independent record stores starting Friday, August 5, 2016.
Seattle singer-songwriter Damien Jurado’s second album for Sub Pop, Rehearsals for Departure, is now available for pre-order on vinyl for the first time. Rehearsals was originally released March 9th, 1999. The album boasts a sharper, more streamlined songwriting approach than his debut, combining finger-picked acoustic guitar tracks with a number of full- band songs. Rehearsals for Departure was produced by The Posies’ Ken Stringfellow, who also played a variety of instruments on the album.
Ghost of David, the third album by Damien Jurado, is now available for pre-order on vinyl and cassette for the first time. Originally released September 19th, 2000. Damien Jurado is an urban-folk singer with his hand in the baskets of all the right fringe genres. He’s a storyteller, and the stories have matured steadily since he first appeared on the scene with the perfect balance of lighthearted pop and saddest of the sad on his early singles and first full-length, Waters Ave S. Since then, (with his second full-length, Rehearsals for Departure, the Gather in Song EP (both from 1999), and this year’s collection of found recordings, Postcards and Audio Letters) he’s moved more toward the dark, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you point blank that it’s in the dark where you’ll find us all.
