We're at the end of the road with the Jagged Leaves EP. The evolution of the Daniel Penta sound has been in the widest of variety. He is a lifelong singer/songwriter, the kind who explores himself in many different styles and genres from band name to band name, from year to year, from moment to moment. The singular thru line for Dan is his incredible lyric and deliberate vocal delivery.
Jagged Leaves is an exploration in a more stripped down musical form. There are no roaring electric guitars or overdrive on this collection of songs, other than the mans voice. Jagged Leaves is a progressive and musically stylistic drummer, a melodic double bass player, the heavy down stroke of Dan's acoustic guitar along with Dan's brute force vocal, Erin Regan's stunning femme fatale vocal and a sugary trumpet line. There are bits and pieces of other instrumentation, very minimal, but also very attractive to the acoustical aesthetic of the material.
On the final day of recording and mixing, we added the last instrument of sorts. Dan wanted an oscillator, a single note attenuator that wiggles up and down the sound scale. We had tried to acquire one from a few different friends with very little luck. The sound in ones head is often very clear and precise, and trying to pin it down can be difficult without the right tool.
I had remembered our very good friend, Dashan Coram, using one in the later years of Huggabroomstik. I remember it being a very simple and small handheld box with a single dial on it. Dashan passed away just a few short years ago, and his memory is not without it's emotional experiences. When I mentioned this to Dan, we both agreed we needed
something like that, or even that very one. I contacted Dashan's brother Awan, aka Spider $tyle, and asked him if he could help out by locating it for me. I sent him a few pictures of what it might look like and he sent me back a couple of snaps and the piece was there, smiling right at me.
As soon as we plugged it in, Dan said, "Well, that's it." He took a few passes with the song, and in a quick easy short couple of bursts, it was finished.
The Micro-Piep 555 as it's labeled. I've never seen one like it, and can't find out any information about it on the internet. I showed it to some friends the night Awan handed it to me and they were like, "Oh wow, The Piep!" This little box has been around. It went on tours with Huggabroomstik through Germany and France and who knows where else. It's had a life of its own and now here it is in the light of day again. The 'Piep' a great little piece and I just wanted to share it with you, as Dan and I really got a great bit of sound and emotion out of it.
The Jagged Leaves EP will most likely be out later this year.
simply incredible
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