Neumu
Damon & Naomi are sweet, nice, beautiful people who make sweet, nice, beautiful music. The thought doesn't seem that staggering until you play context-seeking rock-journalista and look around the rest of the pop-cultural canon and find how few folk such qualities actually apply to. Released as half of a two disc CD/DVD set that also features Naomi Yang's genial video tour diary, this recording of a show played Live in San Sebastian finds Damon & Naomi, diffident live performers at best, in absolutely sterling form. They deliver a set largely populated by tracks from their brilliant Damon & Naomi With Ghost long-player, with Ghost's own Michio Kurihara on hand on tour to lace his limber electric-guitar playing over the pair's misty, majestic melancholia. In this setting, Kurihara serves as a catalyst, helping to draw the folkie duo out of their shy shell. The insularity of their quiet craft often seems an exercise in indulgent romanticism, but with Kurihara stoking the psychedelic spirit that Damon & Naomi made their name from as the rhythm section in Galaxie 500 and then Magic Hour, the gentle sparks of this collaborative union keep the set smoldering glowingly.

As is their practice, the set revolves around "The Navigator," Damon Krukowski's ode to the vagaries of live performing, which was the band's first single before turning up again at the centre of their third album Playback Singers. The pair manage to reaffirm one's faith in the humble wonder of their weepy, winsome, soft-pop evocation of acid-folk. In this version, songs like "The Great Wall" and "Tanka" use Kurihara's guitar to great effect, unfolding into heaving psychedelic mantras born only from two guitars and bass. Without drums, the pair march forward on the percussive qualities of Krukowski's acoustic strums, whether they ring ragged as bold rhythm, or just softly tread through the chords, as on his impassioned version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren," in which Yang joins in vocal harmony so resplendent it serves as the set's titular number, the song's sentiment a summation of the pair's oblatory musical sentimentalism.
-- Anthony Carew

Logo Magazine
With their penchant for tender acoustics and aching beauty, Damon and Naomi are not your average Sub Pop act. The label that almost single-handedly nurtured grunge through its early adolescence - introducing the likes of Mudhoney and Tad to a wide-eyed public - is not exactly renowned for the cultivation of fragile acoustic acts, yet with 'Song to The Siren', a collection of live recordings from the duo's recent European tour, Sub Pop have unearthed an unexpected gem. The bruised sensitivity that drips from opener 'Judah and the Maccabees' - setting Damon's eerily fragile vocals against a backdrop of murmuring harmonium and tempered bass - welcomes the listener with an irrepressible warmth. In its wake, 'The Navigator' oozes uplifting melancholy whilst the title track, a cover of the ubiquitous Tim Buckley number, rivals, and in places surpasses, its creator's hitherto peerless original. It's perhaps the most beautiful record you'll hear this summer; the understated magic of a quite revolution.
-- Matt Brown

The Wire - July 2003
Following the release of the ex-Galaxie 500 duo's fourth album, Damon & Naomi with Ghost, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang toured extensively with that Japanese group's guitarist Kuriahra. This live disc captures a memorable 2001 performance in Donostia-San Sebastian.

After many months of touring, the trio felt they had reached a peak of onstage intuition and communication, and asked their friend Joan Vich Montaner to record their set. The focus, as Kurihara explained in a recent interview, was "to capture the feelings of synergy between the audience and the vibrations we were putting out on stage." Along with Kurihara's shimmering guitar solos and exquisite manipulations of tone and tincture, this synergy seeps through the album. Each song is varnished with the glistening warmth that is often felt during a particularly special live performance, making Song to the Siren pleasingly distinct from Damon & Naomi's studio recordings.

Accompanying the CD is a 54 minute DVD tour diary directed by Naomi. It's amateur in form and edit, but its main point is to capture the experience of being on tour, which it does very well. Though the trio pass through great cities such as Utrecht, Paris, and Valencia, the footage mostly reveals people being bored backstage, audiences talking over the performances, and a huge amount of mundane chatter.
-- Mia Clarke

Erasing Clouds
Music writers tend to look toward Luna as the successor of the legendary atmospheric pop group Galaxie 500, I suppose because of the odd but constant tendency to associate a group's singer with the group more than its other members. Less attention is paid Damon and Naomi, even though both of its members were part of Galaxie 500, and the music that they are playing--a magical form of folk-pop--has more in common with Galaxie 500, in terms of mood and feeling, than Luna has.

Damon and Naomi's music conjures up beauty and mystery in swirling patterns of sound and voice. Each of their albums is absolutely transfixing, casting some kind of spell that's hard to define. And as it's always a pleasure to see musicians you love end up creating music together, their recent collaborations with the Japanese psych-folk band Ghost have been wonderful. Their latest release, Song to the Siren, continues that relationship. Featuring Damon and Naomi with Kurihara, Ghost's guitarist, this live release documents a tour they did together. And while the first disc of Song to the Siren wonderfully captures a performance in San Sebastian, Spain, the second disc is a great surprise, a DVD Tour Diary created by Naomi Yang, with camera work from various people they met during the tour. These two discs together (at more or less the price of a regular CD, I should add) present not only a sample of the music played during the tour, but also a glimpse at the people involved, the places they went, and what it was like for them.

The first disc, Live in San Sebastian, has the group playing songs from each Damon and Naomi album and a couple covers, Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" and "Love," by a Japanese band called The Jacks. Damon and Naomi's voices sound even more gorgeous than on their studio albums, as they sing in a freer style, communicating the same mood but at times with even more emotional force. What makes this recording more than just a typical live album, though is the inclusion of Kurihara's electric guitar, which adds edgy, ghost-like, gorgeous presence which gives an extra dose of spark to the group's mostly gentle music.

Song to the Siren, the tour diary, is an hour-long extremely home-made video that's a combination travelogue/concert film/home video. As the opening shot of gorgeous cherry blossoms (taken outside Damon and Naomi's home in Cambridge) quickly establishes that the film will capture beauty that complements their beautiful music, the quick segue to the next shot also establishes that this is not a slick, "professional" film but the work of regular people who want to document their lives. While that fact might mean the film isn't going to get much attention outside of the music world, it also means that the film feels a lot more real, that it feels like a genuine snapshot of the world around us; which is what documentary filmmaking is all about, anyway.

Though the opening scenes show the trio rehearsing at home and playing at the Knitting Factory in New York City, the bulk of the film follows their European tour, including stops in London, Glasgow, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid, Utrecht and more. There's ample concert footage, enough to give a visual sense of their performing style that fills out the audio document of disc one, and also footage of them setting up before shows, of other bands playing before them (including The Clientele and Richard Youngs) and of them waiting in dressing rooms. Yet as much as a concert film, this is a travel document, about the places they go and the people they meet. There's remarkable footage taken out of plane and train windows, as well as entertaining conversations with people they meet, including a British lawyer who buys their CD from them and then proceeds to give a dramatic reading, with accents, of the promotional quotes included in the CD packaging. Other people in the film include Damon's cousin, who sings one of her own songs while playing an unusual guitar, a German music journalist who Naomi interviews on camera and a Welsh group, obsessed with Joy Division, who play that group's "New Dawn Fades," sung in Welsh, at the Manchester show.

The film is packed with memorable moments, from scenes of yellow fields in the English countryside, set to Damon and Naomi and Kurihara covering Gram Parsons's "Song for You," to the trio walking along a beach in Spain. The DVD also includes a commentary track, where Damon and Naomi provide helpful explanatory information about the tour, giving a greater sense of who all of the people are as well as expressing more of their feelings about the whole experience. To be honest, this is the sort of music-related film I'd love to see more of, instead of slickly produced "concert films" or more self-indulgent home-made releases. Song to the Siren is a worthwhile film and a great document of live music; it delivers images, ideas and feelings that go beyond just this particular band and their songs. -- Dave Heaton

Yolk
CD: **** DVD: ****
Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang's first live album documents their 2001 European tour in a combined CD and DVD package. The CD captures a night in Spain, catching the band in top form, including guest guitarist Michio Kurihara (who collaborated on the previous With Ghost album) who adds his style of fluid fretwork to the sparse, lush arrangements of voice, acoustic guitar, Indian harmonium, and bass-simply gorgeous alt-rock. The title track is a breathtaking rendition of Tim Buckley's classic, popularized in the '80s by This Mortal Coil. Songs from their last three albums appear here in stripped-down form, naked and vulnerable, yet powerfully comforting with a lullaby-like quality. The icing on the cake is the DVD, an intimate and abbreviated cinema verité account of the tour, shot on Yang's new mini-DV camcorder. Sub-standard dressing rooms, family visits, breakfast, fellow musicians, and other incidentals are all captured on the film, which plays more like a private home movie than a concert film (which it isn't). Song To The Siren is a treasure. -- Mickey Mao

NewBeats.com
Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang continue to further the ethereal, haunting sound of their former group Galaxie 500. Blending their vocal harmonies with lush, strumming of their acoustic guitars, Damon and Naomi channel the spirits of both the (gentle side of) the Velvet Underground and a '60s troubadour like Tim Buckley. It is no surprise then that the name of their latest live CD is from Tim Buckley song, recorded in San Sebastian, Spain. With some piercing electric guitar from Ghost's Kurihara, Damon and Naomi run through songs that can really capture your senses: "New World," "I Dreamed of the Caucasus," "Great Wall," and even the cover of "Song of the Siren" that would make Tim Buckley beam. It's dreamy, mellow music, but the fact that it is subdued does not diminish its beauty and ability to excite. The DVD companion disc is a colorful travelogue of sorts, featuring some great scenes from their tour behind their last record, including performances.
-- David Chiu

Ptolemaic Terrascope
This needs absolutely no introduction to regular gazers through the Terrascope, it's what it says on the label.... and a whole lot more! By the time you read this many of you will have had it on your deck with regularity, basked in it's high baptismal glow and will be able to enthuse on it's magic and majesty with far greater eloquence than I. There's such depth, intellect, gentleness and beauty to these supremely talented folk that they never cease to amaze. The studio album "Damon & Naomi with Ghost" (also including two of Kurihara's colleagues) on which this live show in Spain draws heavily was an exquisite collaboration, almost as fine as one dared hope. However, touring as a trio the songs take on whole new dimensions as they are allowed to breathe, blossom and cascade. A crystal clear recording, the sound is uncluttered, just two gorgeous voices, the gentle glistening strum of Damon's acoustic, the eeriness of Naomi's harmonium (and occasional bass) and Kurihara's dazzling (and boy does it dazzle) electric guitar. In addition to five songs from the "Ghost" album and four from Damon & Naomi's back-catalogue there's an emotional interpretation of Tim Buckley's haunting "Song to the Siren" and a fascinating cover of "Love" by a little-known 1960's Japanese psych-outfit, The Jacks, sung by Naomi (in it's native tongue!) The door slides open with a delicate version of "Judah and the Maccabees", slower and more desolate than the studio version, Damon's voice pure and passionate, Naomi's sad economic bass-lines and Kurihara's guitar humming gently in the background, rising and falling like a desert storm. Quite superb and it's obvious from here that we've moved way beyond the original project and that a misty magic is about to be woven. Kurihara shines like a beacon throughout, far more prominent than on the studio recordings. His touch and taste are exquisite, whether it be providing a gentle droning backdrop ("Eye of the Storm"), searing Cippolina-like lightning bolts (at the end of "The Great Wall"), elegant San-Fran psychedelic wisps ("Turn of the Century") or the piercing acid-flash of "Tanka". Personal highlights are currently the dreamy drifting "The Navigator" (reminiscent in both feel and subject matter to obscure pygtrack favourites "Sailboat" by Tom Wachunas and "What a way to go" by The Appletree Theatre), the slow ethereal chill of "Tanka" (with a fantastic vocal by Naomi) and "The New World" which has the lush pastoral beauty of The Gentle Soul and comes from the same spectral folk-rock root as "It's all over now, Baby Blue", "I had to tell you" by The 13th Floor Elevators, and "Mushroom Clouds" by Love (once again more spacious and atmospheric than the "Ghost" take). There's also a truly fabulous version
six and a half minute version of "Turn of the Century" off another earlier D&N album. The accompanying "video tour diary" of their European tour on disc two is light-hearted and yet insightful, and is a particular treat for those of you yet to witness Kurihara in full psychedelic flight. Make no mistake, this is truly a masterpiece, their best to date. Just like the sirens after whom this collection is titled, Damon, Naomi and Kurihara will entrance you, sail to them, let them enfold you. -- Colin Hill

Splendid
As the title suggests, Song To The Siren: Live In San Sebastien is a live disc. It naturally features a pleasantly wistful cover of the Tim Buckley song from whence the album's title comes. However, it's more than just a record of one night's gig: it's the sort of live recording that makes you wonder why gigs can't all be that good.

For those who came in late, Damon (Krukowski) and Naomi (Yang) are two ex-Galaxie 500 players who've long been beaten with the words "sensitive" and "slow", and rightfully so: the duo make sometimes-stately music that's both subtle and soulful. It's quiet-kid heaven, pretty much, and this disc is an attempt to capture the feeling of their most recent studio release -- Damon And Naomi With Ghost -- let loose on tour. While it doesn't sound like a tour of Hammer Of The Gods-level debauchery -- the crowd are suitably worshipful -- it does come across as a tour to kick yourself for not catching.

For touring purposes, only a fraction of legendary folk-outs Ghost -- guitarist Michio Kurihara -- was utilised, but it's a canny choice: his electric playing is what makes this disc shimmer. Reminiscent at times of Mike Oldfield's style, only with more watery, tremolo-laden tones, Kurihara's playing is exemplary: never overplaying, but creating liquid backings to the high-voiced duo's songs of faith and yearning. Ranging from mirrored clouds of sound to erupting shards of near-noise -- "I Dreamed Of The Caucasus" is about as rock as the trio gets -- the tones unleashed are uncannily good. Indeed, the Ebow-workin' solo that crowns "Eye Of The Storm" is one of the finest I've heard.

This is a special CD: it has the clarity that was always missing from Mazzy Star's work, and the dreamy elegance of the best folk around. It's also blessed by the fact that everything fits: Damon and Naomi (and Kurihara, natch) are single-minded in their creation of one of the most beguiling live experiences around. With this CD -- and here, I'm not counting the second-disc DVD tour-diary that us hacks don't get to see -- they've produced the rarest of the rare: a live recording that's strong enough to stand on its own outside the fanboy brigade's rave-ups. While they're playing, the only crowd-noise there is is the sound of open mouths. Add yours to it. -- Luke Martin

Action Man Magazine
The latest release from Damon and Naomi, a live set recorded in San Sebastian with guitarist Kurihara of the Japanese psych-band Ghost, may indeed give credence to the existence of a truly perfect record. Culled from their tour in support of their With Ghost LP, this set captures a moment that transcends time in its swooping, stark instrumentation and lush vocals. The feelings and senses this record inspire run the gamut; from the ancient desert wanderings of the opener "Judah and the Maccabees," getting lost in the beautiful grid of modern "New York City," to recollecting the past and trying to piece it together to move forward at the "Turn of the Century."

Kurihara provides amazing soaring, dripping melody lines that softly fall in between Damon Krukowski's driving acoustic rhythm guitar. The slight drone of Naomi Yang's harmonium adds a depth and balance that ground the two guitarists from floating away. Yet the strength in these songs truly lies in the exquisite power of the narrator's voice to wrap itself around the instrumentation and carry through with stories deep and involved, capable of invoking images and thoughts beyond normal comprehension. Religious visions intertwine with the stark beauty of dreams and flesh throughout the record, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen and Pearls Before Swine's ability to reveal the true wholeness and confusion of these subjects.

Luckily, it is a 2-CD set, complete with a DVD documentary of their entire European tour, which from what I've seen, reveals the group not to be nearly as pretentious as this reviewer must have painted them to be with his purple prose. This is an amazing record, though-- an exotic lovesong to lands imagined and real, from sun-soaked stucco Grecian terraces to the densest ghost-filled (no pun intended) American woods--and there should be no qualms about that. -- Ben Gallay

All Music Guide
****
Recorded live in San Sebastian, Spain in support of their brilliant collaboration with the Japanese psych band Ghost, Song to the Siren is a near-perfect introduction to the wondrous world of Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang. In sharp contrast to virtually all other live acts, the twosome's music seems even more fragile and stark onstage, its achingly spiritual beauty further enhanced by a crowd as reverentially quiet as church parishioners. While most of the material emanates from the With Ghost LP, the inclusion of earlier fan-favorites like "Turn of the Century," "Eye of the Storm" and "The Navigator" colors in the duo's back catalog, and Kurihara of Ghost accentuates the melodies with droning guitar figures as eerie and evocative as a Theremin's wail. The disc includes a bonus DVD video tour diary directed by Yang, complete with commentary track by her and Krukowski.
-- Jason Ankeny

Basement-Life.com
Going back to their work with the often forgotten Galaxie 500, Damon Krukowski and
Naomi Yang have proven time and time again that they, perhaps more than any other
artists in the last two decades, are capable of capturing the feelings of dreary melancholy
and turning them into some of some of the most sadly beautiful pop songs you’ll ever
hear. After the release of last year’s outstanding "Damon And Naomi With Ghost", the two
headed out on a tour of Europe, bringing with them Ghost’s Michio Kurihara, who offered
his magical guitar chops into the mix. Between the live show included on the CD, and its
accompanying DVD — a video tour diary filmed mostly by Naomi Yang — "Song To The
Siren" serves as more than adequate documentation of the whole shebang. The CD
portion of the set was recorded in the culturally rich city of San Sebastian, Spain, and
because the band’s arrangements are so stripped down that the sound quality they were
able to achieve is far better than that of most other live releases. Kurihara’s reverb-heavy
electric guitar is featured even more prominently live than it was in the studio, and it works
brilliantly, making each track interesting enough to hover around the five-minute mark —
which most do — without getting stale. Well worth you hard-earned loot in its own rite, for
only a few dollars more than usual you’ll get a DVD featuring plenty of live footage and the
normal shenanigans of a touring band. You can’t go wrong with this one.
-- Mike Conklin

Chico News and Review
Husband-and-wife team Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang (ex-indie punksters from
Galaxie 500) seem to have cemented their musical direction of beautiful, haunting folk
with this latest two-CD set. One disc features a concert of material mostly from their last
album with Ghost performed live in San Sebastian, Spain; the other is a DVD disc
featuring Yang's light-hearted video diary of their European tour.

Musically, the pair makes slow-tempo, psychedelic folk with lofty harmonies and subtle
instrumentation--Yang plays bass and harmonium (a breathy keyboard with an accordion-
like appendage), while the pair trades mournful, intimate vocals. It's understandable why
critics label the group somnambulant, or slow-core, since the pair tends to favor
languishing, circular melodies, but that doesn't mean that the songs are boring. If you're
looking for an interesting folk experience, this is one of the most hypnotic live offerings I've
heard of late.

The recording is excellent, with minimal crowd noise; the main difference between this and
the studio record is the more tangible presence of guitarist Michio Kurihara (from the
Japanese psychedelic group Ghost), whose piercing electric guitar flourishes complement
the songs without ever becoming intrusive.

The Massachusetts duo also runs a small press for little known avant-literature by the likes
of surrealist painter Leonora Carrington and playwright Alfred Jarry (Damon is also editor
of Pulse magazine's Classical section). Their eclectic tastes as musicologists and writers
likely account for the mysterious, quasi-religious lyrics here that portend some new-age
utopianism. The album is named after the included cover version of Tim Buckley's ethereal
"Song to the Siren."
-- Chris Baldwin

Gravity Girl
Damon & Naomi are sweet, nice, beautiful people who make sweet, nice, beautiful music;
a thought that doesn't seem that staggering until you play context-seeking rock-journalista
and look around the rest of the pop-cultural canon and find how few folk such qualities
actually apply to. Released as half of a two disc cd/dvd set that also features Naomi
Yang's genial video-tour-diary, this recording of a show played Live In San Sebastian finds
Damon & Naomi, diffident live-performers at best, in absolutely sterling form, delivering a
set largely populated by tracks taken from their brilliant Damon & Naomi With Ghost
longplayer, with Ghost's own Michio Kurihara on hand on tour to lace his limber electric-
guitar playing over the pair's misty, majestic melancholia. In this setting, Kurihara serves as
a catalyst, helping to draw the folkie duo out of their shy shell. The insularity of their quiet
craft often seems an exercise in indulgant romanticism, but with Kurihara stoking the
psychedelic spirit that Damon & Naomi made their name from when playing as the rhythm-
section in Galaxie 500 and then Magic Hour, the gentle sparks of this collaborative union
keep the set smouldering glowingly. With the set, as is their practice, revolving around The
Navigator --Damon Krukowski's ode to the vagaries of live performing, which was the
band's first single, before turning up again at the centre of their third album Playback
Singers-- the pair manage to reaffirm one's faith in the humble wonder of their weepy,
winsome, soft-pop evocation of acid-folk.

Logo Magazine (UK)
With their penchant for tender acoustics and aching beauty, Damon and Naomi are not
your average Sub Pop act. The label that almost single-handedly nurtured grunge through
its early adolescence - introducing the likes of Mudhoney and Tad to a wide-eyed public -
is not exactly renowned for the cultivation of fragile acoustic acts, yet with 'Song to The
Siren', a collection of live recordings from the duo's recent European tour, Sub Pop have
unearthed an unexpected gem. The bruised sensitivity that drips from opener 'Judah and
the Maccabees' - setting Damon's eerily fragile vocals against a backdrop of murmuring
harmonium and tempered bass - welcomes the listener with an irrepressible warmth. In its
wake, 'The Navigator' oozes uplifting melancholy whilst the title track, a cover of the
ubiquitous Tim Buckley number, rivals, and in places surpasses, its creator's hitherto
peerless original. It's perhaps the most beautiful record you'll hear this summer; the
understated magic of a quite revolution.
-- Matt Brown

Seattle Weekly
Damon & Naomi on Tour With Ghost works like a seducer. Recorded live in San Sebastian,
the record entices with subtlety and charm, calming and assuring before leaning in for the
soft, deep kiss. It performs its tender hypnosis gradually: A single guitar stroke and Damon
Krukowski's ether-high voice introduces the dazzling, mystic "Judah & the Maccabees,"
and the record from there is all light touches and sweet breath. That it is a live recording
makes the mood more electric; applause rises like the tide between each fragile prayer,
and the presence of the audience (however invisible) heightens the music's communal
feeling. Damon & Naomi's folk songs are so delicate they seems constantly on the verge
of shattering. The lilting "Eye of the Storm" allows a buzzing electric guitar to circle its warm
acoustics like a dizzy bumblebee, and the group's cover of Tim Buckley's "Song to the
Siren" aches with yearning and disappointment. Guitars twinkle like distant constellations,
and the duo's voices soar skyward like spirits heading for heaven. Damon & Naomi's skill
lies in their ability to use their music to cast a spell, and the songs on Tour are so riveting
that they are practically hypnotic. Merging churchlike reverence with songs as quiet as
snowfall, On Tour is nothing short of miraculous.
-- J. Edward Keyes

Stinkweeds
Damon & Naomi recapitalize on the success of their collaborations with members of Ghost
by presenting this astounding live document from the San Sebastian stop of their tour with
guitar samurai Kurihara. Their lazy gauze wrapped folk songs never sounded so good as
when the notes of Kurihara's sometimes quiet, often blistering solos slice through them like
the blades of the 47 Ronin. Highlights are 'The Eye of the Storm' which opens with a
feedback buzz reminiscent of a plane engine that then falls into crescendos of notes
flowing effortlessly out of the speakers. I suppose its sort of psychedelic, but only in a
Mushroom tea kind of way. Everything continues to swirl around anchored by the strum of
Damon's acoustic and Naomi's hauntingly beautiful voice, before building into an awe
inspiring cascade of notes towards the song's end. This pattern repeats itself in the
equally stunning 'The Great Wall' with a two-minute solo from Kurihara that'll leave you
gasping for breath. It amazes me that Damon & Naomi get better with each record they
put out, and continue to find new ways to sound as relevant as ever. Every song on here
is worthy of the highest praise, but I especially liked the closer, 'Love,' which is actually a
Japanese song, and Naomi sings it in its native tongue.

The DVD is equally brilliant. A tour diary which chronicles their trip across Europe, you get
to hear excellent live songs which supplement the music on the CD. You also get to see
such behind the scene action as Naomi's haircut, Richard Youngs and Damon debating
whether or not to drink whiskey out of Styrofoam cups, a British business man reading
reviews of "Damon and Naomi with Ghost" in a mocking American accent. Not to mention
live performances by the aforementioned Richard Youngs, and the Clientele. The camera
work is often shaky, but this isn't supposed to be Citizen Kane, and besides it's a fun way
to get a look at the band on the road especially if you live somewhere like Phoenix and
your chances of ever seeing them in person are minute at best. A great addition to the CD.

Sunday Times (London) ***
Long ago, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang left the American indie band Galaxie 500 to
become a folkie acoustic duo who walk a fine line between wizardry and whimsy. Their last
album, Damon & Naomi with Ghost, a collaboration with the Japanese psychedelic band,
was a career hight point, and Ghost’s gifted guitarist, Michio Kurihara, joins them for the
live recordings compiled here. Yang’s vocals are stronger than in the studio, and on the
title track, a cover of Tim Buckley’s finest song, Kurihara picks out a lead line as electrifying
as Lee Underwood’s original. The second disc is a DVD of behind-the-scenes tour footage
shot by Yang. I don’t have a DVD player, so I haven’t seen it, but come on, how bad can
it be? -- Stewart Lee

Uncut (UK) ***1/2
Not the most obvious of acts to release a live album, Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang
have been refining a frail psych-folk sound since their first band dissolved a decade ago.
Here, there’s always a danger their muted sighs, strums and harmonium drones might
crumble to dust before the San Sebsastian audience. But charming as that can be, they’re
wise enough to have bolstered the mix with the evanescent guitar textures of Michio
Kurihara, on loan from their Japanese collaborators Ghost. So Damon & Naomi lock
together, recalling Sixtires units like Pearls Before Swine, and Kurihara tracks them,
improvising around the songs with both freedom and sensitivity. A beautiful combination.
-- John Mulvey

Pop Culture Press
Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang have had a long and illustrious career in the world of
the underground arts--in writing, editing, publishing, etc.--as well as their music. But to my
ears, their 2000 collaborative album with Japanese psych-mystics Ghost was the high-
water mark of their post-Galaxie 500 output. This new album is a live document from
Damonand Naomi's subsequent tour with Ghost guitarist Michio Kurihara, and though, like
so many sequels, it fails to completely recapture the magic of the original, you should
make an effort to give it a home. The couple of times I've been able to catch Damon and
Naomi live, their hushed, folk-based music has proven too easily drowned out by the
audience chatter and bar traffic of a nightclub setting. So the immaculate sonic clarity of
this disc is welcome indeed. Not surprisingly the set-list is composed mainly of songs from
the Ghost album, though a couple of older numbers like "Eye of the Storm" and "New York
City" are given spine-tingling live treatment. Kurihara's playing, in particular, is incredible
throughout the record, his guitar arching weightlessly over the songs with cathedral-like
grace. And the singing voices of both Damon and Naomi have never sounded stronger.
From what I understand, this CD will come included with another disc featuring a video tour
diary by Naomi for you to play on your DVD player. It's not included with my little promo
disc, but from what I've heard through the grapevine it displays artistic skill in yet another
medium. Show-offs.
-- Matt Murphy

Agouti Music
The first thing that comes to mind whenever I listen to Damon & Naomi is just how beautiful
the music is that they create. There's a sweet "melancholiness" that drips from their
releases, and Song To The Siren is especially moving because this release was recorded
live. Not all bands perform better live than when they're recording in the studio --
admittedly, studio recordings can be manipulated so that bands sound much better than
they really do -- but Damon & Naomi really hit the mark when they play live.
Their harmonies are just outstanding, and the music is mostly acoustic, with Michio Kurihara
(from Ghost) playing spacey electric guitar. This release also features a special DVD "tour
diary" that was directed by Naomi. That's quite a lot for your money!

Song To The Siren begins with one of my favorite tracks from Damon & Naomi, "Judah and
the Maccabees." This song gives the listener a sense of how these artists come together
in a state of musical symbiosis. With this song in particular, you get a feeling of a folk band
that's been together for many years -- just enough time to know everything about the other artists involved. The fact that this song is being played live supports that feeling even more
because it's happening as it happens. The instruments on "Judah and the Maccabees"
include a harmonium, which adds sadness to the song that I don't think could be obtained
unless there was a slide guitar involved. Damon's vocals are perfectly in conjunction with
the slowly strummed guitar and the aforementioned harmonium; his vocals definitely hold
their own special sadness.

Okay, so now I've thrown out the word "folk," and I suppose some of you are cringing at
the thought, but Damon & Naomi are not really all about folk music. Maybe an interesting
combination of vocal harmonies, folk and indie-rock would be a better description. The
addition of Kurihara is a surprising one, if anyone out there knows of Ghost. Ghost create
highly structured acid-folk music, and of course, the band uses influences from their home
country of Japan. Ghost's music is just a bit "out there" sometimes (so much so that it
sounds very renaissance-influenced), and I really like the combination of one of Ghost's
musicians with Damon & Naomi's simplified and down-to-earth music.

Another track that gives the same feeling as "Judah and the Maccabees" is the title track,
"Song to the Siren," which features some beautiful duality between Damon and Naomi in
their singing. Both singers' vocals are different in tone and pitch, and when you hear them
singing separately, you wouldn't imagine that when they sing together, the sound could be
so pleasant. Again, the harmonium adds so much to this song; the instrument begins the
song, wavers in and out during the song, and ends the song as its sound drifts off.
There's also a really strong acoustic guitar that creates the basic rhythm. This song is quite
beautiful.

There are plenty of other great tracks on this CD; in fact, I'd say that Song to the Siren is
just that -- great. If you're tired of listening to the same sound that gets tossed on the radio
or just want to listen to something different, then you should check Damon & Naomi out.
They're definitely for fans of Nick Drake, Yo La Tengo and Low. Damon & Naomi are your
basic peaceful harmonic musicians. --Janine