Skip to main content

Adam Levy - Naubinway

A really good record can be found almost every month. But then there are unique records. Special albums that stay in your mind - and on your turntable/CD-player/smartphone - for a long time. They are really seldom (for me it's about one or two in a decade).
Naubinway - the first solo record of Minneapolis music legend Adam Levy (best known from The Honeydogs) - is out now! And for me it IS one of these unique recordings.

Adam Levy (2015)

The album is released by Think Piece Publishing - which is quite surprising at first sight. But at a closer look it is the perfect choice: Think Piece Publishing was founded in 2012 by Adam Wahlberg just for one reason: to introduce people of shared health backgrounds to each other. Dealing with health challenges can be hard, especially when these are stigmatized - like mental illness.

Adam Levy - Live in Berlin 2014

Adam Levy's son Daniel committed suicide in 2012. Adam stopped his musical work and spent much of the next three years grieving and sharing his story in public forums. In 2014 Adam started to work on the new record. The songs are very introspective and refer to the time around this tragic event. Naubinway has become an album of exquisite songcraft that focuses on the themes of love, loss, grieve and grace. 
Daniel s stunning artwork is featured on the cover and in a 32-page booklet.


Naubinway - Cover Artwork

Adam Wahlberg describes the LP: "The songs are amazing. They’re raw, lyrical, melodic, mostly acoustic, and yes, at times, painful, but in a beautiful and healing way. I can’t wait for you to hear them."


 
The first track - Take It As It Comes - and its wonderful video is here:


The record is mainly acoustic, focussing just on the guitar play and the vocals. 

Every single one of the 13 tracks is self-contained and quite different from each other which makes it very hard to recommend single songs to get a taste of the album. I simply recommend to listen to the LP from start to finish. 
If you just want 3-4 songs at first listen to "Take It As It Comes" (it's simply beautiful), "Atoms Never Die" (it's haunting; one of the very few songs I know that I tend to repeat just after the first run), "Naubinway" (it's overwhelming and heartbreaking) and "When Your Well Runs Dry" (I'm sure Lennon would have been jealous because he didn't write it himself).

Listen to Naubinway in its entirety at Spotify:

Buy Naubinway at Bandcamp or Amazon.com (CD, Vinyl, digital)

PS: Thanks to Bleu McAuley and Matthias Heimann for introducing me into the stunning music of The Honeydogs ans Adam Levy!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jason Falkner - Biography & Discography

There is this kind of musician who is writing, releasing records and performing his own music for more than two decades - but misses the aim that is chart success? The one who creates stunning music and don't get any recognition by public, but by his loyal fans? One of them is Jason Falkner . To sum it up: he may be one of the most underrated musicians of the last two decades. What a pity! Falkner started his musical career with a band called The Three O'Clock but soon he joined a new band of his former bandmate (Roger Joseph Manning Jr.) - Jellyfish . After the success of the first record ( Bellybutton ) he left the band and said he'll be never again a band member again (where he was clearly wrong). His solo career started in 1996 with Presents Author Unknown , followed with the fabulous Can You Still Feel? . I recommend to listen to Can You Still Feel? from start to finish - there's no filler song, no low point. 2001 was a good year for loyal fan...

Ivy - Say You Will (from the new record "Traces Of You")

 

Rooney - Kids After Sunset (The Lost Album): Interview with Taylor Locke & Ned Brower (Bandmates from Rooney)

Bandmates Taylor Locke and Ned Brower took the time to talk about a special chapter in the history of Rooney : the "lost" second album, Kids After Sunset ! I reached out to both of them separately and asked if they could answer a few questions - check it out below. Over the past 20 years, aplenty songs from this album surfaced online and were shared through blogs, fans, and social media. These were mostly demos or low-quality recordings, but in 2024, a seemingly final version of the album appeared on the internet! Kids After Sunset - cover art concept PPS:   Around 2004, Rooney recorded a significant number of songs for their intended second album,  Kids After Sunset - at least twenty-five tracks, as far as I know. The plan was for most of these songs to be included on the album. However, it is said that the record label rejected nearly all of them, claiming they didn’t like any of the tracks, and instructed the band to start from scratch with a completely new album. I...