A.A. Bondy

I know I'm late on this one, but I'd be remiss not to mention it. One of my favorite contemporary folk-rock songwriters A.A. Bondy is putting out a new album on Sept. 13. "Believers" is 10-tracks long, "conjured during and between dreams, in bare rooms, and on the late night streets of America."

It was recorded just this past spring in California with Rob Schnapf, who -- if we're talking about the same guy, here -- has produced some pretty big names and records, from Beck, Foo Fighters and Jimmy Eat World. This should be interesting.

Out on Fat Possum, this will be Bondy's third full-length, and the follow-up to 2009's "When the Devil's Loose," which was better-constructed than his first solo album "American Hearts," though that first album meant so much more to me personally.

I was 25 during my Big Drunk Brooklyn Summer and I had booked a double-bill of Bondy and O'Death to play in my friend's loft's living room. A hundred people showed up and it almost, on impact, made the space look like a bomb shelter, where every bit of humanity was poured into Solo cups. Bondy had just self-released "American Hearts," before he signed. He was sullen and loved his wife, the keyboard player, and those strangers managed to shut the hell up just one song in. Bondy mystifies.

As does his poetic allusion in the recent press release:

I dreamed
a strange and wonderful machine -
and
a lantern rocking in the deep deeps.
                        - J. Villareal

Oh rapture, sweet rapture.

Here is the tracklist for A.A. Bondy's "Believers":

The Heart Is Willing
Skull & Bones
Down In The Fire (Lost Sea)
Surfer King
123 Dupuy Street
Hiway/Fevers
Drmz
The Twist
Rte. 28/Believers
Scenes From A Circus