Nehemiah St-Danger

Nehemiah St-Danger has been toiling in obscurity and poverty for the last decade… Why? Because his nebulous message isn’t exactly easy to wrap your head around. This marble-mouthed mystic examines themes of spiritual identity, alternate histories, and practical divination in his work, but he expresses this through the language of crude R&B lyricism, epitaphs to late 20th century pop archetypes, and other tropes from the junkyard of the human mind. His singular vision demonstrates that folk culture and art were not obliterated by the Cold War, but given a new life and new clothes in a media-saturated Information Age. His debut, The Slow and Painful Birth of Nehemiah St-Danger is a contemporary tribal congress, convened to expel demons from the village of the human condition, a rock and roll sacrifice to forgotten gods where the temple doors read “Mall of America.”If this weren’t confusing enough, St-Danger is also a technophobe computer programmer and fetishist of obsolete technology. Not only did he record his album with a combination of 4-track cassette and an ancient desktop computer, he also reverse-engineered a small orchestra of 1980’s CASIOs and other synthesizers to function as his backing band… and the results are haunting, yet undeniably “Pop Music” (albeit a little twisted).Nehemiah St-Danger has performed and/or recorded with Arrington de Dionsyo (of Old Time Relijun, Malaikat dan Singa), poet and pianist Chris Stroffolino (of the PianoVan and YouTube fame), LAKE (k. records), The Happy Jawbone Family Band, and members of The Gris Gris, Pocahaunted, and Tune-Yards.

Strongly recommended if you like The Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, and Todd Rundgren (equally)… or if you wish Ariel Pink had produced the first Lenny Kravitz record.