It is with tremendous excitement that we announce the most welcome addition of phenomenal New York-based guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn to the growing Paradise of Bachelors roster of contemporary artists. His forthcoming trio record Time Off, slated for release on vinyl, CD, and digital formats in late Spring 2013, finds him in the good company of longtime friends and collaborators John Truscinski (drums) and Justin Tripp (bass), deploying his signature virtuosic guitar style framed by the most commanding vocal performances he has yet committed to tape. The album features Gunn’s oblique character sketches and story-songs about friends, acquaintances, and denizens of his Brooklyn neighborhood, using the trio band format to launch his compositions into new, luminous strata. We can’t wait to share some sounds with you! Until then, we’ll just bask in this proud moment and continue working hard to prepare the record for your ears and turntables (and CDs and computers and cars and phones, etc.)

Check out the below Fader TV video of Gunn playing a solo “Old Strange,” which appears in a rather different full-band version on Time Off. Read on for additional information about Steve’s astounding musical practice. If you aren’t familiar with his work yet, we highly recommend that you check out his excellent prior releases on the stellar 3 Lobed Recordings. Stay tuned here and on Steve’s PoB artist page for more details.

Bio

Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning nearly fifteen years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings. His albums with GHQ and longtime collaborating drummer John Truscinski represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven, forward music. A voracious schedule of international performances has cultivated a fervent fanbase for Gunn’s music throughout the world.

Mining the catalogs of Basho, Bull, Chapman, and Sharrock, among other titans of stringed-things and record-session royalty, Steve has steadily processed these inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Friendships and collaborations with Jack Rose, Tom Carter, Meg Baird, and Michael Chapman colored the disciplined evolution of the discursive, deconstructed blues sound, at once transcendent and methodical, that is now Gunn’s signature. Close listening reveals the influence of Delta and Piedmont country blues, ecstatic free jazz, and psych, as well as Gnawa and Carnatic music, on the continually unfolding compositions.

Gunn’s 2009 solo masterpiece, Boerum Palace, demonstrated a fully realized power for songcraft. Steve started to sing more and developed a commanding vocal style equal to his guitar practice. His acclaimed instrumental duo recordings with Truscinski, Sand City (2010) and Ocean Parkway (2012), cemented his place among the top of his peers, both present and past. These documents display Gunn’s compositional penchant for charting musical travelogues that ramble through city and wilderness alike. Dispatches home are not merely descriptive but corporeal; the evocative, rhythmic power of his writing and phrasing carries the listener along bodily. Steve builds songs as exploratory vessels, opens them up for mechanical tinkering, and lives in them through ceaseless improvisatory permutations.

Paradise of Bachelors is thrilled to release Time Off (2013), his first album as leader of a trio including longtime friends John Truscinski on drums and Justin Tripp on bass, and a record on which Steve’s compelling singing features more prominently than ever before. This is Gunn at the top of his game, writing his most memorable tunes and lyrics, utterly unique but steeped in traditions both vernacular and avant-garde.