The Singleman Affair - Let's Kill The Summer - Out On Monday

Artist: The Singleman Affair
Title: Let’s Kill The Summer
Release Date: 07 August 2006
To get your copy please click here.
Do folk dream of opium sheep?

When Poptones signed the Singleman Affair they knew nothing about the band. Only of the songs. A sitar-little drone that was included on the Two Million Tongues Festival compilation alongside No Neck Blues Band, Josephine Foster, Pearls and Brass and Jack Rose.

They knew the song was pretty ace. And they knew the reference of the name ‘The Singleman Affair’ was a reference to the classic movie ‘The Graduate’ starring Dustin Hoffman.

And neither did we know that the Singleman Affair was in the midst of recording a nigh-perfect debut album of home recordings called Lets Kill The Summer. Why? Why the Summer? Who knows. We only knew that The Singleman Affair was a solo vehicle for Dan Schneider, a one-man Jandek at war with himself trying to create iconic classic songs. A conversation with the Singleman Affair will find the listener being indoctrinate into the grooves of a dusty old 7” with topics peppered with references to the Byrds, Scott Walker, Ananda Shankar, Leonard Cohen, Fred Neil and less known cult artist such as McDonald and Gilles and Christine Harwood.

Yes, The Singleman Affair is bizarre. A man set out with some home recordings to make songs that sit comfortably alongside Devendra Banhart, Flaming Lips, Notorious Byrds Brothers and Leonard Cohen. Using the same recording techniques as his hero Skip Spence, The Singleman Affair usedold reverb units and spacious room mic’s to give each song a haunting dreamy feeling

All music that has the Singleman Affair exploring the tin pan alley of the outer limits of imagination and record collection. From the sitar-drench cinemantic opening of Is Madra Morning Is ... to the drone chord of Dragonflies to Find that begins in the last Chelsea Hotel room in Leonard Cohens world and ends with a Morricone whistle. The Singleman Affair pushes the heightened pleasure response with his lyseric cracking voice inhabiting the ghost of Fred Neil on ‘Baby Youve Been On My Mind’ before the icy tones of Nico inform Little Sister. Forthcoming single Oh To Say employs swooping effects that bring the song into a radio playing Walker Brothers on a symphony on Mars. In other words ... genius.

The Singleman Affair provide a disorientating drugged-up soundtrack for the 21st century. It leaves you no option but to join his carnival of freakery.

A lysergic riddled treat - Flux Magazine
The result is a luminous, reverb-and drone-heavy, psych folk delight that uses unusual acoustic guitar tunings and sounds like it might have been recorded in 1968.
**** - Q
**** - Mojo
**** - NME

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