Title track from his forthcoming album, ‘Other You’ sees Steve Gunn confirming that along with his reputation as a gifted and innovated guitarist, he’s also a talented songwriter and an increasingly impressive vocalist.
Gunn pulled this album together during two extended visits to Los Angeles in late 2020 and early 2021. It was recorded at Mant Studios with veteran producer Rob Schnapf (Beck, Elliott Smith, Cass McCombs, Kurt Vile). Gunn was also assisted by musician, longtime friend and collaborator Justin Tripp, whose credits include appearances on Gunn’s ‘Time Off’ and ‘Way Out Weather’.
The trip west appears to have impacted on the entire process and ‘Other You’ has a featherlight touch that runs through the entire album. Gunn is ably assisted with contributions from an array of talented friends and fellow artists including Juliana Barwick, Mary Lattimore, Bridget St. John, Jeff Parker, Bill MacKay, Ben Bertrand and drummer Ryan Sawyer.
Animator Sabrina Nichols has stepped up to match the mood of the track with some delightfully wistful work. Her cool, uncluttered, trippy graphics, interplaying with recurring stencil-styled motifs, and combining to heighten the West Coast, laid-back, sunshine feel of the track. She has an impressive talent for design and the colour palette she utilises here is particularly evocative. In keeping with the soft but insistent rimshots on the snare drum, her work feels gently propulsive throughout the track, but never seems rushed.
Since his days as a side man to Kurt Vile, Gunn has always demonstrated he has considerable music talent in his own right, initially as a guitarist, but increasingly as the impressively creative focal point for his own musical family. Powered by shimmering melodies, outstanding musicianship across the board and Gunn’s increasingly confident voice, the release of ‘Other You’ should see him taking his own rightful place in the sun.
