amERICa (LP)

Following a Fire Records reissue campaign which casts new light on a decades-long career, Eric releases his first solo album in over a decade. It’s about Eric, it’s about America – a country he has toured since the late 70’s, and where he has lived since 2011. Eric recorded
the album in his house in upstate New York: amps in the kitchen, the hallway, bass amp in the bedroom, microphones up the staircase, frenetic bursts of guitar feedback exploding out of the kitchen… Eric played electric guitars and bass throughout, against simplistic drum
loops of his own creation. Here and there he called on friends and neighbours – Brian Dewan – Wurlitzer organ and other dodgy keyboards, bringing in cheap but magnificent synthetic choirs. Jane Scarpantoni – cello, Alexander Turnquist – e-bow guitar. Eric’s wife Amy Rigby assisted on piano, banjo and vocal harmonies. Eric treated and manipulated the sounds the musicians made as they were being recorded. And so through random scrawls of guitars and
loops and drones, meditations emerged on desperation (Property Shows), regret (Days Of My Life); fast food (Sysco Trucks), self-advancement (Up The Fuselage), pop fame lost and resurrected (Boy Band), firearms and civil liberties (White Bread): white bread built this land of milk and money… Other songs are autobiographical and personal – Several Shades Of Green, Transitory Thing