Steve Gunn has been at the vanguard of American experimental / guitar-oriented rock music for over a decade. After a trio of acclaimed albums recorded for Matador, Gunn will release his 7th studio record – and first in 4 years – on November 7th. And there’s a single ‘Nearly There‘ which is out now.
With “Daylight Daylight“, Gunn wanted to capture something of the intimacy of playing solo and rather than pulling together a band to flesh the songs out, as he’s done on previous albums, he enlisted a single primary collaborator: producer James Elkington, an old friend and longtime collaborator (who also produced Gunn’s 2019 album “The Unseen In Between“).
Elkington is known as a guitarist, but Gunn asked him to contribute arrangements of strings and woodwinds, inspired in part by the music they’ve talked about over the years (ie, Mark Hollis, Ennio Morricone, The Fall, Basil Kirchin) and the evolution of their own relationship making records – both together, and with others. They soon found a fruitful working process for the project: Gunn would record solo demos and send them to Elkington, who had free rein to develop the arrangements on his own.
Working primarily out of Elkington’s Nada Studios in Chicago, they would continue adding from there—a synthesizer, a guitar overdub, a percussion line—but they were committed to the relative spareness of their initial approach. Macie Stewart (violins and viola), Ben Whiteley (cellos), Nick Macri (upright bass), and Hunter Diamond (woodwinds) also contributed.
Gunn will tour the UK and Europe in October and November. Dates are listed below and tickets are available from this link.
Steve Gunn “Daylight Daylight” Tracklisting:
Nearly There
Morning on K Road
Another Fade
Hadrian’s Wall
Daylight Daylight
Loon
A Walk
Steve Gunn UK Dates 2025:
Oct 23 – London, UK @ St. Mathias *w/ James Elkington
Oct 24 – Glasgow, UK @ Hug and Pint *w/ James Elkington
Oct 25 – York, UK @ The Band Room *w/ James Elkington
Oct 26 – Shropshire, UK @ Firefly *w/ James Elkington
