Instrumentation: ukulele, hand percussion, guitar, toy piano, musical saw, loops, mountain dulcimer, mandolin, casio, banjo, other things that make noise
Influences
my father and all my family, golden retrievers, growing up in a house where i had no neighbors, living in the city, gram parsons, syd barrett, donovan, the byrds, huxley, absinthe, tony caro & john, leonard cohen, the band, yo la tengo, beauty, sadness, red wine, miller, townes van zandt, jason molina, marquez, vashti bunyan, doc boggs, whiskey, isb, patchen, neil young, thirteenth floor elevators, love, the way the crooked golden light angles across my roof, through my smoke and vice-ridden passages into what i hope will become my own eternity, if even just for the second that it takes to hold my breath and exhale
Nathan Moomaw plays folk music to lay back in the park and sip whiskey to. Keeping your eyes on the plants and trees and trying to avoid glancing at the buildings towering above the foliage. You feel an addictive pleasant sad.
Some nice words from some lovely publications:
It's not always easy to choke down sugary singer-songwriters, but San Francisco's Nathan Moomaw writes songs that are as disarming as they are un-pretentious. With a clear, pure voice that tiptoes between innocence and sadness, the tunesmith trusts his wistful compositions to rickety cradles of acoustic guitar, ukulele, toy piano, and about a dozen other instruments. Moomaw's new disc, 26, is a concept album - a song summing up each month of his 26th year. Granted, it's a precious conceit, but the disc comes off less like a teenage diary and more like a tender commiseration. - Jason Heller (The Onion A.V. Club)
First of all, I adored this album because it reverberated with the soothing quality of Iron & Wine; secondly, because of the intriguing and original concept behind the album. Each song is titled after a month of the year, reflecting that specific month in a respective year of Nathan Moomaw's life. This album is folkie and eerie like Devendra Banhart, but is sublimely subdued and quirky like Kings of Convenience. Unpredictable at its best, 26 is an acoustic personal journey through Nathan Moomaw's most private thoughts--think Fevers and Mirrors by Bright Eyes sans the depression. Instead of dark suicidal melodies, Moomaw uses lighthearted chimes, innocent guitar cords and laid back, Damien Jurado-esque vocals to convey a sense of heartbrokenness atop a sense of human accomplishment, making 26 one of my favorite lo-fi albums of 2008. - Kristyn Lambrecht (Slug Magazine)
He wrote a song every month in the year he turned 26, and they are a gorgeous set of fractured folk tunes. - Anablog
...genuinely breathtaking songs! The sincere lyrics and soft, lo-fi vocals are backed by a very folk-country sound... kind of like Iron & Wine, but there are more experimenting with styles and instruments. Essentially, 26 lets the listeners peek into the personal journey of Nathan Moomaw; in a way, we get to witness Nathan’s growth from a twenty-six year old musician with a brilliant idea for an album to a twenty-seven year old musician who just completed a strikingly ambitious project. - Lycanthropy
Dude records one song for every month of his 26th year. Pretty solid "NEW WEIRD AMERICA" riffage. - KUCI, Irvine
Moomaw, celebrating the release of his CD 26, braved the reverb chamber of chatter in the room with his breed of understated kitchen sink folk. Looping musical saw melodies, tabla and some keys underneath his deftly plucked guitar, the mild-mannered Moomaw was just shy of confessional and sometimes reminiscent of the sunnier side of Donovan as he charmed onlookers for most of his set. I found myself wishing I was listening to him around a campfire with a handful of friends for full effect. The tune “September,” with its quiet annunciations and color metaphors, recalls a time when Kings of Convenience, Iron and Wine and M. Ward ushered in the “Quiet is the New Loud” era with their low decibel indie folk, before their musical “careers” and compositions became more grandiose, and some dude named Bon Iver had to lock himself in a cabin for a year to rediscover the elusive Q. - Joseph Hayes (Bay Bridged)
He creates an easy style of folk music {an almost fairytale quality folk music} that is as much at home this year as it will be twenty years from now. - Billy (The World Forgot)
...“26”, an enchanting sequence of songs focused on folk sounds, which the scattered hints of psychedelia à-la Olivia Tremor Control do not distract from a gentle songwriting, leitmotif of the whole album. - Alessandra Reale (Ondarock)
...refreshing with well-executed depth and texture, every song evoking new themes and sounding distinct from the last. The tracks flow effortlessly into the ears, and while his winsome lyrics may be glossed over at first, they easily stand on their own. Moomaw’s gentle voice, acoustic guitar, ukulele, glockenspiel, saw (of the woodcutting variety), various percussives and friendly chuckle make for a complex, lo-fi, gypsy-delic folk romp that is both entrancing and relaxing - Michelle Springmeyer (The Skinny)
Hi! I'll try to be there! Costello is a cool place to play at. The next day, July 3rd, I'm going to barcelona with my band Autumn Comets, we're playing at Sidecar! Miguel.
Small world - please tell Marc the Spanish saw player that I said 'hi'. We exchanged e-mails a while back. He was inspired to play the saw by the movie 'Delicatessen'. If you guys ever play saw together, let me know if there's a recording/video.
Hi Nathan, How is Spain? I know you probably will be still in Spain in July, so we'll miss you at the Saw Festival, but could I ask for your help in spreading the word to any other saw players you might know, please? After a long application process, the NYC Musical Saw Festival was approved by the Guinness Book of Records to attempt to break the current world record for the 'Largest Musical Saw Ensemble'. The current world record (set in Poland last year) is 27 musical saw players playing together. Could we set a new world record on July 18th? All saw players are invited to be part of a Guinness World Record breaking attempt at the 7th annual NYC Musical Saw Festival: When: Saturday, July 18th, 2pm Where: Trinity Church, 37th street corner of 31st Avenue, Astoria (Queens), NYC. Admission: $10 Info: www.MusicalSawFestival.org
For the Guinness World Record attempt all sawists will be playing 2 pieces together (in what we call the 'Chorus of the Saws'): Ave Maria/Schubert - accompanied by church organ Over the Rainbow - accompanied by piano The 'Chorus of the Saws' will be conducted by Scott Munson.
Please - pass the info on - we need to get as many musical saw players to participate as possible to set a new Guinness World Record!
Look out, Nathan! It's not THIS tuesday, it won't be until the 22th of NEXT month! Anyway, we'll be playing with Evripidis this saturday at the Elèctric Bar, hope to see you there!
PSYCHEDELIC GREETINGS NATHAN... HOPE LIFE IS TREATING YOU WELL
SENDELICA
NEW ALBUM OUT ON RAIG RECORDS APRIL 24TH
“THE GIRL FROM THE FUTURE WHO LIT UP THE SKY WITH GOLDEN WORDS”
TWO TEASER TRACKS UP ON OUR MYSPACE PAGE NOW!!
GO AND LISTEN…
FULL T/L:
STANDING ON THE EDGE – MANHOLE OF THE UNIVERSE – HAZELNUT – DARK DISKO – THE GIRL FROM THE FUTURE – GLORY BEE – SEVERAL SPECIES OF FURRY HUMANS GATHERED TOGETHER IN A CAVE GROVING LIKE GROOVY PICTS.
Also will be available as a limited edition (100 copies) which come as a collectable CD+DVD edition with the "SleepWalker Fever" movie by Grant Wakefield. DVD: 8 tracks - 51 min.
This year’s NYC Musical Saw Festival is scheduled for July 18, 2009, 2pm. It sure would be great if you could participate! I know, traveling to NYC is not easy... but may be some year... it would be nice to meet you!
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