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The Wondrous World of Damon & Naomi
(1995)
Produced by Kramer in 1995, Damon & Naomi’s second album features acoustic guitars and harmony vocals, a fusion of sad folk and dreamy pop.
“The Wondrous World, a work of darkly organic textures, will easily establish itself as a timeless collection of well-formed melancholy.” — Alternative Press
“A textured, smoothly weird collection of wistful, orchestral, eerie pop songs that linger in the ear like sweet nothings.” — CMJ
1. In the Morning (4:22)
2. The New Historicism (3:32)
3. Tour of the World (3:59)
4. Forgot to Get High (4:35)
5. Pyewacket (3:20)
6. Life Will Pass You By (3:17)
7. Who Am I (3:03)
8. New York City (4:47)
9. Pandora’s Box (2:38)
10. How Long (3:57)
11. Whispering Pines (4:07)
Damon Krukoski - guitar, drums, vocals
Naomi Yang - Bass, vocals
Electric guitar, mellotron, emulator, clarinet, tapes,
bass and backing vocals by Kramer
Produced and engineered by Kramer
at Noise New Jersey, Summer 1995
Additional engineering by Jed Rothenberg
The Wondrous World of Damon & Naomi was recorded in the summer of
1995, and released that fall by Sub Pop. Like Damon & Naomi’s first "solo"
album, More Sad Hits, it was produced by Kramer at Noise New Jersey.
Damon wrote the following notes as part of the press release for the original
release of the album:
"Less than a month after the first D&N record was finished, before it was
even released, Kramer asked us to come down and start another one.
Three years later, we finally did. It wasn’t that it took us that long to write the
songs, but it did take that long until we really felt like making another record.
It was hard to think past the first one for a while; we had thought it might be
our last, and there's a little farewell at the end of it. And even after we decided
to make another album, we felt the need to do something else with our
music first, so we wouldn’t be simply repeating ourselves (as it turned out,
we started playing as the rhythm section in the psychedelic band Magic
Hour, and discovered a very different side to our music, as well as all sorts
of new influences!). But above all, I think we needed to put some distance
between us and the mood of that first record — bitterness can be a
dangerous feeling.
"More Sad Hits carried a heavy (and angry) quote from Ezra Pound, about
what is left two years later. . . This record, three years from the last, begins
with a question, 'What will you say when there's no one left to fight?' —-
a lyric written about others, but which seems like it could be redirected at
ourselves. Now that the album is finished, I've been listening to it and trying
to figure out how we answer that challenge of the first song — what will we say? — and what I hear us say is full of regret, and nostalgia. Those three
years must have aged us more than I knew! The 'Tour of the World' may be
over — but a tinge of mysticism seems to have crept in, replacing the more
innocent wonder we used to feel. Weary and knowing Pound gives way to
mystics . . . welcome to the Wondrous World!
"As for the previous album, we went to Noise New Jersey with the songs,
put them down more or less first take, me on guitar and Naomi on bass, and
then overdubbed our vocals and drums. Kramer did the rest. Kramer
believes he added fewer tracks of his own this time, but I'm not so sure.
It does seem to be more focused on the singing, and I played an acoustic
guitar throughout the album, making it sound perhaps more folky. Naomi
thinks that we had less cause to build in long, instrumental sections
because of our experiences in Magic Hour! Whatever the reason, I agree that
the songs are more tightly constructed, and I think Kramer responded to that.
His arrangements are like 'settings,' casting the songs in various moods.
"There are three cover songs — 'Life Will Pass You By' is by the band
Kaleidoscope (the American one, not the English one), and it sounded to
me and Naomi like a song Kramer could have written. 'Who Am I' is by
Country Joe and the Fish, and it's more pitiful than even our sad songs.
'Whispering Pines' is by The Band, and is an old favorite of ours. Each of
these songs expresses something we wanted on the album, but which we
couldn't or perhaps wouldn't write on our own."
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