Damon McMahon

Not too long ago, Damon McMahon was in a short-lived New York rock band called Inouk, but before that he was a kid from New England who started writing songs by himself, for himself.

After moving to Philadelphia at age 17, he wrote constantly—often four to five songs a week—though he almost never performed live. He played a total of three gigs in four years. His music almost never left his room, and he kept his songs stowed away in a drawer in a plastic bag.

At age 21, Damon moved to New York. Along with his brother Alexander and their friend Ian, he formed Inouk. They released an album called No Danger and played shows with the Double, the Occasion, Modest Mouse, White Magic, the Secret Machines and more. Inouk dissolved after a few years, but in its final and most tumultuous period, Damon decided to record - alone - some of the bedroom songs he never got to play with the band. He tracked 22 songs in the two days before Christmas Eve, almost all of them first or second takes.

A year later the band broke up and he was left with the collection of spare recordings that would become Mansions. Although he sometimes plays gigs with a live band, most of the songs on Mansions are simply Damon’s vocals and guitar. The album is a rock & roll record - intense and grabbing - without a crutch to lean on; a psychedelic record - imaginative and uneasy - with nothing to hide behind. His guitar picking is laid back, but vocally, every syllable is laboriously annunciated and smattered with an unmistakable vibrato. Mansions is a record that is quiet and simple but explosively pained - the sound of inner troubles turned outwards and transformed in the process.