Our Song of the Day is from Sean Proper’s solo guitar album Design Engine released in October last year on Dying for Bad Music . I chose the opening track which displays the beautiful guitar work which swells to a finger shredding pace…it calls to mind American Primitivism, lovely psychedelic strands and so much more….a great album from the Sunshine State of Florida.
Sean Proper (aka Sean Wrubel) had a recent interview with DFBM in which he revealed that the association of the natural world with American Primitivism felt foreign to him. Whilst mountains, lakes and the great outdoors inspired song titles for greats such as Fahey, Basho and Jack Rose his own real world influences are from a more artificial landscape of palm trees and condominiums. His tracks reflect this leaning with titles such as ‘Canal Machinery’ and the track above ‘ Built’. I was tempted to say he didn’t have ‘typical’ influences but I’d be falling into my own trap…what is ‘typical’ anyway other than someone else’s opinion. He was raised on a diet of Metallica by his dad and he has a long running obsession with UFO’s…it all has an influence. The interview was interesting in that it called into my mind more questions about how we approach musical definition and that horrible term ‘genre’. What’s more important is a young artist enjoying the freedom to experiment and go where the music takes him rather than where others ‘expect’…this is what Sean is doing.
Check out the interview on DFBM and get the album here.