Dan Melchior
The Souls Of Birds And Mice
2024 Stock. Released in 2015, this is arguably Dan Melchior's stand alone release in a massively impressive catalog. Eschewing the gutbucket trawl & extended electro pedal-whomp, The Souls of Birds and Mice is more fugue like; it isn’t composed of elements so much as it is composed of the composing of elements. Recorded at a pivotal time in the his life, one can detect the influences varying from his wife, Letha Rodman-Melchior to Pale Cocoon, Martin Davorin Jagodić' & Pôle running through this …
CB Odyssey
"One of the great joys of the ever-evolving catalog of Dan Melchior is hearing where in the spectrum of styles that he has mastered each record falls. From studio recordings to lo-fidelity home experiments, full band rockers or plaintive solo excursions, fans never know what they are going to get until the needle drops. Those of us who have followed Dan on his prolific pathways are ready for anything but always assured that the spirit of the artist himself, one unique enough to be its own in any…
Negative Freedom
Recorded in Philadelphia in late 2016, Negative Freedom encapsulates the moment when the horrible truth was just beginning to sink in. “Everything got broken while I was looking the other way” sings Dan Melchior on the title track and perhaps that’s a relatable sentiment. Elsewhere Melchior’s ever-withering gaze settles on prima donna self-googlers in They Insulted Me In Mojo and self-serving promoters get their own anthem in A Nice Holiday — ”Be careful of enthusiasts who want you to play their…
Cod War Kids
A deep and delicate dive into the psyche of an unusual duo, British-born ex-pat North Carolinian guitarist Dan Melchior & Icelandic-born Hanover-based experimentalist Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. Each quite unique on their own accord, but in combination bring a sound reminiscent of some odd combination of church music, the Deep South, some kind of swampy bluegrass, the Phantom of the Opera — really it’s hard to pinpoint where they might go. But through the whispering murmurs, the twang and fleet…
Melpomene
Dan Melchior has become an unlikely 21st century experimental music icon. As the forms, signifiers and 'experiments' of the last several decades have become increasingly codified, one naturally begins to ask the question what the term in a contemporary setting means to the listener. If the performer and the audience both know what to expect before, during and after a record or performance, can it be considered an experiment? At the start of the century, Melchior was known in NYC as being a studi…
Road Not Driving
Last time we checked in with Dan Melchior, he was Playing The Greys. What has he been up to lately? Melchior is as aesthetically restless as he is endlessly creative, so in between recording an album with Austin TX art-punk trio Spray Paint and a myriad of tape and vinyl releases, Dan found the time to gift Ever/Never with another classic slice of Melchiorcore (please, shoot the messenger for that one). Road Not Driving is a 12” EP that covers a fair amount of ground during its runtime.“I Got A …
Dark Arc
Edition of 300, with a full-colour sleeve and insert. Two side-long mental bar crawls with these distinguished minds. Payment in kind, please! And definitely no cards; this is not Copenhagen. Burping the blues, straining for Schnapps, sweating for extra ice. Make mine a double!Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson (b. 1977) is an Icelandic musician and sound artist, founding member of Stilluppsteypa. Sigmarrson was born in Akureyri, Iceland and studied sound art at the Fachhochschule in Hannover, Germany f…
Home of the Blues
Kye is proud to present Home of the Blues, the latest LP by Dan Melchior, and his sophomore effort for the label following 2012's now legendary Excerpts (& Half-Speeds). For Home of the Blues Dan agreed to undergo a series of exercises aimed not only at destabilizing his natural songwriting process, but also testing the durability of the blues idiom when placed under stress. As one would expect, Dan met the challenge with aplomb, hoisting the project beyond some one-dimensional art-school pr…
For Letha
Four tracks of instrumental acoustic guitar from the master songwriter. Starting out in London as a devotee of various blues and old time country musicians (Skip James, Dock Boggs, Robert Wilkins, etc) Dan Melchior soon found that slavish impersonation wasn’t the right route for him. After a period of mainly re interpreting traditional material, Melchior found a way to express his own concerns and ideas lyrically, and set about melding them to a backdrop of over driven, buzzsaw rock, with variou…
All At Sea
We have been following Dan Melchior since the beginning with the Broken Revue, the collaboration with Billy Childish and the amazing project Dan Melchior und Das Menace. We are amazed by his own original and personal evolution from (let's say) "orthodox" garage punk songwriter (and what a songwriter! Someone said one of the best in the US, but remember, he is british) to avant rock, experimental folk /blues and weird sounds. The stuff he played changed with him, slowly affected by electronic mus…
Happiness is Overrated
"Originally from the land of throwing sausages, eggs, beans AND tomatoes on one plate for BREAKFAST, though residing in the land of the freaks, Dan Melchior travelled many roads, between wreckless R&R bands or duo's with Wild Billy Childish, to solo collages on Chocolate Monk or Kye records, to the beautiful collaborative works he created with Letha Diane Rodman Melchior, Dan's partner who sadly passed away in November 2014, and who this record is dedicated to. Knowing this makes it uneasy to wr…
Slow Down Tiger
Dan Melchior on Slow Down Tiger seems to stray a little ways away from his usual partner in crime, the guitar, and dabbles with a foreboding dark ambience with ominous vocal samples (and field recordings) spliced in. To this day, it seems like the only track available for preview off of Slow Down Tiger is “Tongues,” and apparently that’s just a tidbit of what’s available. The synopsis for this record is touting two side-long tracks and I’m really curious as to what else Melchior is serving up on…
The Backward Path
The Backward Path marks a departure for Dan Melchior in a number of ways. It is his first album to feature other musicians since his time with the Broke Revue, and it also marks a change in his songwriting methods, with more heartfelt sentiments being expressed rather than the usual flood of snide non sequiturs. It is also a quieter album, without much of the “did he mean it to sound like that?” sonic onslaught of Catbirds & Cardinals.Dan’s wife Letha Rodman Melchior was diagnosed with cancer in…
Catbirds & Cardinals
Catbirds & Cardinals is the latest psychedelic album lobbed into New World shores from Dan Melchior und das Menace. Coming down slow with a clear vision, it’s a sure hit. Since the late 90s, Shepperton, England native Dan Melchior has consistently delivered an avant-pop that is off-kilter and literate, with a sense of menace and a stronger sense of play. He’s a new Jesus of Cool, riding just about the underground like the antipodean Chris Knox. The sound of Catbirds & Cardinals is clean, lo-fi, …
Assemblage Blues
As Dan Melchior continues to kick the Medway gutbucket to the curb, he is also willfully absorbing all manner’ve underground cankerous crud along the way. For those endeared to wallet chains and crisp, cuffed jeans, this has been tantamount to heresy. But for thems what’s embraced the sounds of “the new Dan,” said aberrations are as welcome to caustic ears as a cold beer is to a set’ve parched lips. And while last year’s Visionary Pangs LP (released with Das Menace on the S-S label) was a grower…
Excerpts (& Half-Speeds)
Dan Melchior is known by many as a long-standing footsoldier of garage rock. Throughout his 15 years of service Dan has gained a reputation as being one of the few in his field willing to test the flexibility of an otherwise stagnant genre. Last year's brilliant Assemblage Blues LP (Siltbreeze) showed Dan scratching at the bars of his cage, restricted by the very domain he dominates. Excerpts (& Half-Speeds) is Dan Melchior's hammer in the mirror. A courageous act of self-vandalism, reduc…