Besides being a member of Brooklyn folk soul outfit Holy Hive, Paul Spring is perhaps best known as a co-writer, session guitarist and assistant studio engineer, having worked with the likes of Mary Lattimore, Sasami and Robin Pecknold. But he records under his own name too, quietly amassing a pretty impressive catalogue of releases (which you can find on his Bandcamp page) that range from acoustic folk, pop-oriented rock songs and even interpretations of J.S. Bach pieces on the 12 string guitar.
Later this month, Paul Spring will release Thunderhead, a record that promises to take his music in a new direction entirely. Combining electronic and Medieval influences, it’s an album of anachronisms, casting Spring as some strange bard that wanders into your village with tunes so odd and unfamiliar they sound like sorcery. He describes Thunderhead as a record “for fans of Irish Flutes, TR-808s, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Baroque Chorales, The Illiad, and bass that will shake the rear windshield of a 2007 Toyota Prius,” playing the entire range of disparate instruments himself and even going so far as to include a cover of Koji Kondo’s ‘Fairy Fountain’ from the N64 classic.
Ahead of release Paul Spring has unveiled the single ‘Beetle on a Blade’, a song which captures the album’s ethos rather nicely. He extracts the melody from the traditional Irish folk song ‘Stone in a Field’, recombining it with unsteady guitar and the unwavering march of the drum machine, aiming ultimately to “celebrat[e] fleeting moments of joy in a world fallen apart.”
Thunderhead will be release on 16th December.