Essentially, Amen Dunes began in 2006 as a creative outlet for Damon McMahon, formerly of Philadelphia band Inouk. Sometime in '06, McMahon holed up in a Catskills cabin and put together a batch of recordings without any plan to release them, and then promptly left the tranquility of upstate New York for the bustle of Beijing, China.  The recordings sat dormant for three years before a longing to return to music along with some indie hype brought McMahon back to the states in 2009.  The Catskill sessions were released, McMahon relaunched the Dunes project, and he's since released three albums -- each different from the last but all featuring a varied mixture of electronic, psychedelia, & folk music. It's dense, drifting, & beautiful stuff. 

A lyrical snippet from "Lonely Richard": 

Street preacher you know yourself
You’ve known yourself for all time
This is a curse, a quiet burn
Black roses there out on the vine
Looking like me I’m like the wind in the steppes
I can sit there, they have the time
Just give me a second now…there it’s done
To move out there on the horizon
Do you know me like you know yourself
My friends out there on the horizon

Have yourself a good time

Photo by Maggie Famiglietti

Check out Amen Dunes' cover of Tim Buckley's 1970 tune "Song to the Siren".