Ground Control Touring

Following on from last year’s deluxe reissue of Partisan Records’ very first release, Decline of The West, Emil Amos is back for his 13th record as Holy Sons. Also a member of seminal west coast experimental rockers Om and Grails, Amos has has teamed up with the perfect producer, John Agnello (Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile, Phosphorescent, Sonic Youth), to steer the ship toward a purity of sound and vision that has eluded him in the past.

In Emil’s own words:

“In The Garden is essentially John Agnello and I out at Water Music in Hoboken, New Jersey carving out the sound of a classic 70’s record if it had been made by a band with all its players being very focused in the hey-day of their career… but we ‘faked’ that vibe using one player. That’s basically what I learned 4-tracking in the 90’s… how to replicate live-sounding recordings where a band is reacting and playing off of each other in real-time.”

“This album was originally aesthetically based on the joy of pulling out old 70’s American & British songwriting LPs at night while you’re pounding whiskeys by the fireplace. The way those albums look and feel like a lost pillar of classicism. The drums are so round and close they sound like you could eat them …and there’s that feeling of pure pleasure you get from hearing guitar solos that were done in one take and slightly flawed vocal harmonies recorded on the fly before Pro Tools existed. It came from a lust after that time when mixes and the relationship between all the instruments breathed beautifully at the height of analog equipment.”

In The Garden is Holy Sons in its most potent, crystalline form. It is Amos’ statement album thus far, his flawless song cycle. Once it sees the light of day, it seems an impossibility that he will continue to have the luxury of hanging out on the fringe.