The Cell David Allred

• 1 The Cell 04:55
• 2 Mandatory Soul 01:03
• 3 Nature's Course 04:26
• 4 Full Moon 01:44
• 5 Fading Away 02:12
• 6 Family 02:54
• 7 Lexington Hills 06:34
• Total Runtime 23:48

Info for The Cell

Following on from last year's acclaimed debut with Erased Tapes The Transition — named #17 album of the year by The Sunday Times — Californian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist David Allred returns with The Cell, a mini album released on June 14.

Meant as a companion piece to The Transition, The Cell picks up where The Transition left off, with David continuing the search to find his place in the world. “The Cell is about warmly acknowledging the darkness in our individual lives as a strategic method of gaining a deeper understanding of how to move forward in a vastly dissonant world with optimism, harmony and light.”

Opening with the title track, The Cell immediately draws us into David’s unique world of storytelling, displaying his peculiar skill of weaving feelings and characters with wandering melodies. The five-minute opener peaks with David’s emotional falsetto repeating “In the mind”, acting as an alarm call for himself and his surroundings. Lead track Nature’s Course finds David delving deeper into existential questions about the human condition and its relation to nature, set to a gentle, melancholy piano ballad.

“Nature’s Course is a feeling pertaining to the way our subjective human experience is subconsciously directly related to the slow steady pace of nature and our ability to cope with our inner struggles accordingly” explains David.

The Cell further cements David’s place among the American songwriting tradition, from the slow methodical spacey instrumental Mandatory Soul to the poetic solo piano number Family and the dense and continuous Lexington Hills. With each piece we are transported to David’s unusual but rich and textured little world.

Hailing from Loomis, a small town outside of Sacramento, via Portland, Oregon – David worked as a sound engineer and session musician, featuring on multiple recordings by the likes of Birger Olsen, Brigid Mae Power, Brumes, The Beacon Sound Choir, Chantal Acda, Heather Woods Broderick, Jung Body, Masayoshi Fujita, and many more. He quickly found himself touring Europe with Peter Broderick, culminating in a Royal Festival Hall performance, and contributing the arresting voice and double bass piece Ahoy to the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary box set 1+1=X.

David Allred, vocals, piano, upright bass, trumpet, violin, organ, keyboards
Peter Broderick, strings (7), percussion (7), synthesizers (3, 7), glockenspiel (7)

Additional recordings by Peter Broderick
Mixed by David Allred and Peter Broderick
Mastered by Francesco Donadello at Calyx

David Allred
Following on from last year's collaborative release Find The Ways with Peter Broderick, the Californian singer and multi-instrumentalist David Allred returns with a first solo album on Erased Tapes out November 2nd, titled The Transition.

Hailing from Loomis, a small town outside of Sacramento, via Portland, Oregon — David worked as a sound engineer and session musician, featuring on multiple recordings by the likes of Birger Olsen, Brigid Mae Power, Brumes, The Beacon Sound Choir, Chantal Acda, Heather Woods Broderick, Jung Body, Masayoshi Fujita, and many more. He quickly found himself touring Europe with Peter, culminating in a Royal Festival Hall performance, and contributing the arresting voice and double bass piece Ahoy to the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary box set 1+1=X; only to return to where he started, Loomis, and finally write and record The Transition as his first full-length statement in just one month.

With the release of The Transition, David Allred takes his place among the classic American songwriting tradition whilst revealing a peculiarity to his storytelling. Isolated and cut off from the outside world, David began unravelling his life and putting it on record. With a double bass in his bedroom and a piano in a church across the street, the stories started to unfold until a set of ten songs came to life. Vignettes and feelings from his own experiences, as well as characters he met along the way, inspired a rich tapestry of stories and melodies.

Winter will hopefully see David return to European shores in support of The Transition. Until then, this full length released November 2nd is the closest we can get to the curious mind of David Allred.

This album contains no booklet.