MORBY,KEVIN - SUNDOWNER Price: €29.99 Format: LP Availability: Immediate Dispatch

SIDE A: SIDE B:
6. Don't Underestimate Midwest American Sun
7.A Night At The Little Los Angeles
8. Jamie
9. Velvet Highway
10. Provisions
1. Valley
2. Brother, Sister
3. Sundowner
4. Campfire
5. Wander



In the winter of 2017 I moved back to my hometown of Kansas City from Los Angeles. The move was sudden
and unforeseen, just as I was tying a bow on the writing process for what would become my 2019 album, Oh
My God. I bought a Four Track Tascam model 424 off of an old friend to help me get to the finish line, but much
to my surprise and excitement, this new piece of equipment in my all-but-bare home didn't help complete one
album but rather inspire another: Sundowner. The new collection of songs came quickly and effortlessly as I
did my best not to resist or refine the songs, but instead let them take shape all on their own.
As the songs kept coming I cleared out the crowded shed that was sitting dormant in my backyard and
built a makeshift studio before adding drums, lead guitar and piano to complete the demos. Each day I would
teach myself basic recording techniques, watching the channels illuminate and pulse as if the machine were
breathing, and then emerge in the evenings as the sun was getting low: - around 5:30 in the winter, when the
Kansan sunsets look icy and distant, like a pink ember inside of a display case, and 9 o'clock in the summer,
when the sunsets are warm and abstract.
Landing back home felt jarring juxtaposed with a life full of chaos and adventure with my band on the road.
But at the very least, I was happy to have - for the first time in my adulthood - a place to close the door, with
no temptations other than to work on music and reflect on what I had built since I left. It was a new form of
isolation, one I had never explored or expected to experience. Not ready to let go of the hand of the California
desert, I spent the winter decorating the best I knew how; with mementos from my previous home, cactus
and aloe vera and covering the walls in pinewood - immediately earning my house it's nickname, The Little
Los Angeles.
In January 2019 I contacted my friend and producer Brad Cook to help recreate what I had made in my shed.
We chose to work in Texas; we wanted to make sure the record was done far away from any coastline, and
in the heart of America. Brad played bass and some keys on the album, but beyond that he encouraged and
inspired me to play almost everything else. All lead guitar, proper drums (save the drums on “A Night At The
Little Los Angeles”), mellotron and what I believe to be the albums secret weapon - a WWII era collapsible and
slightly out-of-tune pump organ - were performed by me. We did, however, bring in James Krivchenia towards
the end of the session to fill out the percussion. It was an honor to work with him as he built maracas from
pecans and played on the floor of the live room, adding flourish wherever he saw fit.
On the last evening of the session, after everything had wrapped, we all climbed on top of an empty water
tower on the property, giving us a view in all directions. To the North you could see an endless Texas, with
long wisps of cirrus clouds above the desert floor, and to the South there was Mexico, the recent detention
camps only a mile beyond, with large cumulus clouds hovering over, bringing us to an ominous pause. To the
West, towards the setting sun, the two families of clouds merged, holding the last light of the day in purple and
orange. Below, a freight train cut the landscape in half as it whistled in the distance.
Almost as soon as the session wrapped, I was off and away on press trips and then proper tours for Oh My
God, which came out in April that same year. Sundowner sat inside of a hard drive back at Sonic Ranch and
did not see the light of day, until I found myself, as did the rest of the world, stuck inside their home and in
quarantine in March 2020. My second year of touring for Oh My God was cancelled. Brad, Jerry and I worked
from our respective homes, sending notes back and forth as we worked alone but together to mix the album,
and suddenly, just like that, Sundowner was finished.
Songs, like sunsets, are fleeting, and it's only due to a willingness and desire to catch them that you
ever, if even only for a moment, grab a hold of one. When writing Sundowner, I was lucky to have had the
Tascam 424 there to help capture both. Sundowner is my attempt to put the Middle American twilight -- it's
beauty profound, though not always immediate -- into sound. It is a depiction of isolation. Of the past. Of an
uncertain future. Of provisions. Of an omen. Of a dead deer. Of an icon. Of a Los Angeles themed hotel in rural
Kansas. Of billowing campfires, a mermaid and a highway lined in rabbit fur. It is a depiction of the nervous
feeling that comes with the sky's proud announcement that another day will be soon coming to a close as
the pink light recedes and the street lamps and house lights suddenly click on. -- Kevin Morby, Kansas, 2020