Will Schube likes his sugar with coffee and cream
The warble of Damon McMahon’s voice brings a sense of comfort not dissimilar from those go-to foods saved for special occasions. There’s something vast and intimate about McMahon’s melancholy. The latest Amen Dunes record, Love, utilized a far more expansive landscape than his previous works under the Dunes moniker. Love is a fantastic record because it depicts an artist-in-growth. His follow-up, a collection of odds and ends compiled for an EP titled Cowboy Worship, is a confounding addition to the Amen Dunes discography.
Cowboy Worship feels like more of a companion to Through Donkey Jaw (Love’s predecessor). The EP offers a sketchbook of Love’s process—presenting some of its tracks as bare-bone shells of their completed selves. Four of the EP’s six tracks are re-workings or early structures of Love tracks, while “Lezzy Head” is an updated version of a Through Donkey Jaw track. “Song to the Siren” is a lovely cover of the This Mortal Coil/Tim Buckley track. Cowboy Worship doesn’t offer newness as much as it offers variables.
