Herman Dune
Even with a ten years career and an imposing discography, the duet that is David-Ivar Yaya Herman Dune (songwriting, singing, guitar) and Neman Herman Dune (drums) is still one of the best kept secret of the underground music scene. After a heavy tour across Europe, Herman Dune is coming to Canada to present their brand new album, Next Year In Zion to be released on Bonsound Records on March 17th (digital release on March 10th).
By touring across Europe and the United States since their early 7 inches lo-fi to this seventh album, Herman Dune earned a certain cult status, praised by the critics over the year as well as their always faithful public.
Eager to coincide the formal authenticity (unity of time, place and recording, recording on non-digital material) with the emotional authenticity (straight foward sincerity, honest declaration of love), the two Herman Dune are presenting with Next Year In Zion their most achieved recording to date. An album reminiscing not only a lost paradise during a time of electronic cynism and where digital compression is everywhere, but even a promise land - true love, spiritual feelings, nature’s music, sunshine for everyone.
In terms of sound, Next Year In Zion seems to enlarge and complete the search started with their previous records, notably with the works of their partner in crime, producer and sound engineer Richard Formby - who recorded the duet live on analog tapes with one of the rare EMI sound board the Beatles used to record on at Abbey Road. In so, the duet is offering an actual sound with a sixties undertone, a strange journey where a folk naivety is holding on to happy hopes.
Press quotes
Often tagged as some kind of ‘anti-folk’ outfit thanks to a stripped-down set-up and friendships with the likes of Kimya Dawson and Jeffrey Lewis, Herman Dune’s Next Year In Zion is more of a collection of well-crafted pop songs than a DIY hotchpotch. Although retaining a characteristic air of bittersweet melancholy thanks to the plaintive tones and deft wordplay of singer David-Ivar Herman Dune, this is a decidedly upbeat affair too, an album with love and light pushing almost all the heaviness from its heart.
MOJO
Their wry lyrics and storytelling are charming and heartfelt.
KCRW
Blissful, fairytale-esque songs.
KEXP
While critics have classified Ivar’s ironic wryness as “freakfolk,” there’s nothing freaky about his lamenting love songs. The melodic compositions are unantagonistically pretty, with female-voiced choruses regularly adding angelic fragility to Ivar’s plaintive everyman voice.
HEEB
There’s witty dialogue, there’s hearsay, there’s putting words into mouths, there are hearts on all sleeves, there are gleeful rushes where everything feels possible, there’s longing and there’s mighty optimism in every second of these songs that are folky and triumphant in their simplest attributes. Herman Dune dares us to find reasons to just be glad for sunshine.
DAYTROTTER