PNEUMERSHONIC

We blew Paul's "outsider artist" by getting him a license & signing him up for Social Security benefits. Now he lives INSIDE, thank god. Here's a review from CMJ:"Pneumershonic is one Paul Bourre, homeless for over 20 years and nuts for probably as long (luckily his poison is coffee), and his songs have all the elements that make up the familiar "ain't it weird" genre. But that's exactly NOT why we like this disk. Bourre is talented, to be sure--he improvises his songs on the spot, and unlike, say, Wesley Willis or Daniel Johnston, he can actually sing, when he wants to, with a soft, mellifluous voice like a slight, quiet Elvis. Our favorite part of FREQUENCIES, though, are TRAY FULL OF LAB MICE label-head Matt Jasper's arrangements. Heavy on the Optigan (a sound we're not sick of... yet), marimbas and free-range guitars, light on any kind of recognizable meter, the music cascades around Bourre's rants about girls and Martians and hippies and love and more girls. The brief, untitled track seven is a perfect jewel of overlaps and repetition, with jungle beats derailed into free-rhythm land. And Bourre himself has a few tricks up his sleeve: "Paul Emulates Trumpet" is just that, and "Farewell, Marimba Bimbo" has him scatting in an abstract duck-and-spittle style. "Table Girl" multi-tracks Bourre's voice, turning the song into a round for a crowd of Pauls: some mumble, some whisper, some croon, but all eventually get around to singing the same song, if not all at the same time." Pneumershonic has also been included in various media such as WFMU's Hippie Death March and definitive outsider music book SONGS IN THE KEY OF Z.