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David Jacobs-Strain To Release New CD "Geneseo"

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NEW DAVID JACOBS-STRAIN ALBUM, GENESEO, SET FOR RELEASE JUNE 25TH

“His acoustic and electric guitar work is crisp and driven, and his voice can rise to a soulful pitch or fall quietly in sync with a loping beat. His imagery-rich tales—well, it’s not hard to imagine some of them being covered by the likes of John Hammond Jr. . . . or Boz Scaggs. . .” — The Washington Post

“David Jacobs-Strain sings and plays slide-driven country blues with a passion and authority that few artists of any age can muster. But besides firing off compelling covers of traditional tunes. . . his original songs have served to update and evolve the idiom, winning widespread respect from the contemporary blues community.” – Guitar Player

“Jacobs-Strain’s tastes are unapologetically eclectic.” — The Chicago Tribune

Los Angeles, California. Geneseo, the sixth CD from critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter David Jacobs-Strain, is set for release June 25th via Hangdog Music. A passionate song cycle of ten new original songs penned by Strain, Geneseo was recorded in part by funds received from over 200 loyal Kickstarter fans in a nationwide campaign. The release of Geneseo will be accompanied by tour dates nationwide.

David Jacobs-Strain is a virtuosic slide guitarist and a storyteller with a passionate one man show that is both humorous and deeply lyrical. A bridge between today’s indie folk troubadours and the delta guitar slingers of the 1930′s, David plays with precision and sings with emotional abandon. He’s a six-foot-two Jewish blues singer from Oregon, a Stanford drop-out in a trucker hat, and a Left Coast poet; one part Leo Kottke, one part Ken Kesey, * 2658 Griffith Park Blvd., Suite726 * Los Angeles, CA * 90039

and one part Robert Johnson. Is it Delta Blues? Gangsta Grass? Geekabilly? Secular Humanist Gospel? It’s a sound big enough to land David at the Newport Folk Festival—as a teenager— and later at MerleFest, the Strawberry Music Festival, the Montreal International Jazz Fest, and on tour with artists as diverse as Lucinda Williams, Etta James, Bob Weir, and Boz Scaggs (for three summer tours). “I try to make art that you can dance to, but I love that darker place, where in my mind, Skip James, Nick Drake, and maybe Elliot Smith blur together," says Strain. His new album, “Geneseo," speaks of open roads, longing hearts and flashbacks of Oregon— a record of emotions big and small, and lyrics that turn quickly from literal to figurative. “I'm fascinated by the way that rural blues inscribes movement and transience. The music that frees a singer keeps them on the run; there's a crossroads where a thing can be enchanting but dangerous; damaging but beautiful."

Geneseo began as an experiment. Camped out in a converted 1820s church, Jacobs-Strain recorded guitar and vocals on a laptop, rarely using more than one microphone. “It was winter in rural upstate New York. We had very little daylight but endless old instruments to try: a swap-meet banjo on one song, on another, the Conn Electric Band—an orphaned keyboard from the 60s —which seemed to sound best only on tuesdays." A road trip to Los Angeles brought in Scott Seiver (Pete Yorn, Flight of the Concords) on drums, and, after a chance meeting in a Hollywood bar, Jon Flaughers (Ryan Adams) on bass and David Immergluck (Counting Crows) on pedal steel. “I had all the songs written but I didn't have a budget or a plan. I couldn't stand waiting, so we just started recording ad hoc." Caitlin Carey of Whiskey Town sent harmonies and fiddle tracks by email, Band of Horses' Bill Reynolds Dropboxed a track for the impressionist blues “Josephine," and long-time collaborator Bob Beach recorded harmonica solos in Philadelphia.

By spring, the record was an overwhelming collage of sounds and parts. To pare the record back to its organic core, David enlisted two Oregon engineers, Beau Sorenson (Death Cab for Cutie) and Billy Barnett (Frank Black, Cherry Popping Daddies): “Everything that would fit on twenty-three tracks was moved to analog tape, then we turned off the computer screen and mixed as if it was forty years ago." (more)

Geneseo was produced by Strain and Mike Brown and was recorded at Temperamental Recording in Geneseo, New York (hence the title!) and The Chalet, Los Angeles. A complete track list is as follows:

1 All In My Head [4:04]
2 Broken Bell [3:39]
3 Try To Break My Heart [3:41]
4 Golden Gate [4:44]
5 Raleigh [4:54]
6 Looking For A Home [3:55]
7 Broken Hearts Lost & Found [4:53]
8 Dream On [4:04]
9 Daphne Odora [1:58]
10 Josephine [5:31]

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