Anthony D’Amato has a way with words. The folk singer has crafted a sideline as a publicist, working with some of the leading lights of rock and pop. Now, having signed a recording deal with New West, D’Amato is keen to break through as an artist in his own right.
This fall, D’Amato headed to The Great North Sound Society in Maine with producer Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Langhorne Slim) and members of Bon Iver and Megafaun to record his as-yet-unannounced debut for New West Records. The album is due out in 2014. And “Ludlow” is an early taste of what to expect.
The sombre effort is about “unintended consequences, about how even the best intentions can slip out of your control,” explains D’Amato, who wrote and recorded the song in his apartment on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. Jocie Adams – formerly a member of The Low Anthem and now a mainstay in Arc Iris – came by to lay-down clarinet on the track. “The whole thing was very DIY,” D’Amato recalls.
Celebrated photographer Adam Makarenko shot and completed the video from the confines of his Toronto apartment. The idea for the clip was “to create something organic and internal feeling,” explains Makarenko. “I wanted to represent the rise and fall of emotions; the circulation and movement of energy — organic and electric — exploring the order and chaos. I wanted to metaphorically explore the ebb and flow of life from one moment to the next.
The results can be seen below.
Makarenko has had his sights set on working with D’Amato since he heard the artist’s 2010 “Down Wires,” an album recorded with a single microphone in his college bedroom. The album caught the ear of critics and tastemakers at NPR, the New York Times, Paste and American Songwriter, and D’Amato went on to land support slots with the likes of Pete Yorn, Ben Kweller, Alejandro Escovedo and Joe Pug.
At New West, D’Amato joins a roster which features the likes of Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, Ray Davies, Buffalo Tom, Rickie Lee Jones and the Replacements. It’s “one of my favorite labels in the world,” he tells Billboard.com, “so I’m absolutely thrilled to sign with them.”