naturalismo

The Skygreen Leopards is a collaboration between Glenn Donaldson and Donovan Quinn.  They have released six albums and an EP since their formation in 2001, and each successive album has witnessed a transformation of composition.  A river is never the same on two consecutive days, and Disciples Of California, the newest Leopards album, is arguably their “biggest riverboat yet”.

Disciples Of California is the first record to include The Skyband; Wymond Miles on pedal steel, Jasmyn Wong on drums, and Shayde Sartin on bass.  The basic tracks were recorded live in the studio, which gave the rhythm of the songs more space to breathe than on previous recordings.  The result is a jingle-jangling, gentle sway that lies somewhere between pop and folk.  Donovan Quinn and Glenn Donaldon’s highly expressive voices blossom through colored washes of pedal steel as electric twelve-string riffs rotate and slide by overhead. Acoustic strumming, warm and persistent, hold it all together even when the songs threaten to stumble and fade.  

Lovers and friends take the listener down the back roads of memory, through the sun-drenched fields and quiet evenings of the past. Like dreams, the songs present scenes that may seem new and strange, and yet somehow entirely primal; derivative of past experiences.  Under closer examination archetypes emerge, which may lead one to ponder the existence of a Universal Unconscious.  The belief that, at a certain level, we are all manifestations of a deeper archetype, a pattern of being that speaks through all of us.  As Glenn Donaldson stated so plainly in an interview, “each song is a remembrance of a song not yet written.”

[download] Disciples Of California

[download] Places West Of Shawnapee

[download] Tents Along The Water (from Life And Love In Sparrow’s Meadow)

[download] Minotaur (Burn A Candle For Love) (from Life And Love In Sparrow’s Meadow)

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