Hi everyone - today I'm sharing "A Feeling Unbroken" the final single from my new record Patron Saint of Tireless Losers, the first record of songs I'm releasing since co-producing Mutual Benefit's Growing at the Edges and writing strings/playing saxes on Katie Von Schleicher's A Touch of Schleicher in the Night last year.

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A Feeling Unbroken is a song from someone being left behind, trying to be a dignified loser, feeling love and resentment all jagged and twisted up. The way my voice breaks and comes back exactly at the same time on both takes is so wild. I couldn’t believe it on the playback, real studio kismet.

'A Feeling Unbroken' Lyrics:

I know that you’ll understand
everything that’s killing me but
I know you can’t stop it now
not that I’d ask you to you know
maybe someday I’ll find a story fit the trap
you carry the day I know no hand is gonna strike you down
no one’s gonna strike you down

now that you’re on your way
how does it feel to remember
from thirty thousand feet
to those apartments where the air pressed down
down on your throat you’re waking choking in hell
now you carry the day I know no hand is gonna strike you down
no ones gonna strike you down

god is a feeling unbroken
long may you run in the open
god is a feeling unbroken
long may you run in the open
I’ll be watching

"On his acclaimed LPs with his experimental rock band Wilder Maker, Brooklyn singer-songwriter Gabriel Birnbaum’s animus has been breaking molds. Records like 2018’s sprawling concept album Zion and last year’s guest-lead-singer-filled treasure trove Male Models highlighted the 38-year-old musician’s penchant for formal adventurousness, stylistic pivots, and lyrical verbosity—the kind that mirrors the flow of a warm and spirited conversation, betraying a fascination with influences from Bob Dylan to Billy Woods. On his albums billed to Gabriel Birnbaum, he focuses on economy and direct emotional resonance, bending classic American songforms to his will. Following 2019’s Not Alone—and coming after a busy period of production and arranging work for artists like Mutual Benefit and Katie Von Schleicher—his stunning new solo album Patron Saint of Tireless Losers is the most immediate and narratively kaleidoscopic collection of songs of his career—both deeply personal and enigmatic in a way that encourages serial relistens. With sensitivity and patience, Birnbaum cuts straight to the spiritual essence of the characters he inhabits, painting affecting and lovingly drawn scenes bolstered by cathartic hooks.

Recorded in deep winter, Patron Saint—like Not Alone—channels the production methodology of Neil Young and Crazy Horse: made in a few days with none of the players having heard the material ahead of time. Birnbaum—an accomplished saxophonist as well as guitarist and singer—has one foot in the world of NYC jazz and avant-garde music, and works with players who mix indie rock and Americana bonafides with free-improv instincts: Will Graefe (guitar/bass), Adam Brisbin (guitar/bass), and Jason Nazary (drums). The spontaneity of the playing shapes the dramatic situation in each track; at turns, they build to the point of obscuring the chord structure and exploding the tempo—see Nazary mimicking the turbulent thought process of the narrator in “Same As You.” Elsewhere, they assume a more atmospheric role, stripping back to evoke the story’s mise-en-scene, as in the gorgeous, gently restless “A Drunk.” Elsewhere, the songs and arrangements adopt a more restrained presentation, based on striking melodic counterpoint, recalling Wilco or Elliott Smith at their most baroque.

These sensitive arrangements underscore a dizzying and impressive spread of themes and dramatic scenarios. Nearly every song takes place from the vantage of a different character, including young women, aging fathers, paranoid preppers in a post-apocalyptic world, and lonely men reaching out for connection. The throughline between these individuals is that they are usually struggling to reconcile the reality they cling to—often with no small amount of desperation—with a broader, harsher reality of which they are just becoming aware. Birnbaum cites one of his favorite collections of short stories, James Joyce’s Dubliners as inspiration. “Many of my songs overlap with the scenarios in that book: people who think they have a way out and then something happens and then it’s just like, “no.” It’s a classic human experience.”

レコードのナレーターがしばしば直面する障壁は、実際と想像上のものが混在している。彼らは自分の実際の失敗を嘆きながらも、ストロー・マンの敵と自分自身の臨終を想像する。Birnbaumが率いる多くのリリースのようすは、多くの場合、正面から向き合うことはなく、バーまたはパーティーで起こる。オープニングの「Laughing Backwards」は、2016年の選挙を見守ったバーの場所を訪れ、世界にまだ残っている陰影の中で楽しい時間を過ごす、祝賀的なが避難的なハングアウトから生まれた曲だ。 それ以外のところでは、「Same as You」のナレーターは、コンサートの会場で自分自身への憎悪と幻滅に直面し、「The More They Come Around」では、より広範な政治的混乱と文化的無神経の背景において、混沌を迎え入れる。

誰もが、ガブリエル・ビルンブルームの多様で魅力的な音楽的活動のいずれかの部分を追跡してきた人ならば、過去の 2 年間で彼の統治的動機は、必然的に魅力的で、常に新しい視点や馴染みのある格言を避けることであることを知っているだろう。彼自身の擁護するパトロン聖人の一人であるポール・サイモンと同様に、ビルンブルームは毎回のレコーディングで新しい課題を設定し、歌の作り方の基本的な部分を磨き、意図しない新しい美的背景を探求している。 (彼は、AM-ロックのヒット曲、長編のブルースの解釈、感染性のリフロック、現代的なR&B、などを証明している。) Patron Saint of Tireless Losers 彼の芸術の本質に自信を持ってカットし、成熟した物語の声と常に驚くべき音楽のシンタクスを強調しています。Birmbaumが世界に投入したすべてのものと同様に、それは自信と不安の両方で繁栄するツアーです - 重要で絶えず進化するアーティストの特徴、その作品は、あなたがその周波数をタップするとすぐに取り返すことは不可能です。

- ウィンストン・クック＝ウィルソン