Strange Loop

Available on limited double vinyl and digipak CD & MP3, the eclectic yet incisive second solo album, Strange Loop, Co-produced by Paul Dempsey and Tom Schick (Wilco, Ryan Adams) at Wilco’s The Loft Studio in Chicago, ‘Strange Loop’ features the tracks ‘Morningless’ and ‘The True Sea’ and is already attracting a slew of incredible reviews:

“Dempsey clearly had fun writing these songs. It’s an album full of surprises – and 2 decades after he started releasing music, it proves that Dempsey still has inspiration to spare” – ROLLING STONE (4 Stars)

“Dempsey’s best writing yet. He’s an artist who can leave you speechless, weakly smiling at the fact someone’s been able to channel that amount of feeling in a three or so minute song” – AU REVIEW (9/10)

“Paul Dempsey has long ago earned his place amongst the pantheon of this country’s finest songsmiths. … Strange Loop is a reaffirmation of everything that is fresh, original, beguilingly addictive and darkly entrancing about Dempsey’s attention to the craft…” – AMNPLIFY

“Bloody brilliant” – THE WEST AUSTRALIAN (4.5 Stars)

Arriving seven years after the Something for Kate front man’s acclaimed solo debut, 2009’s top five ARIA charts success ‘Everything Is True’, ‘Strange Loop’ –is freewheeling in form but precisely executed; it’s a record that knows what it wants to say, what it needs to be – 11 tracks that enclose surreptitious dry wit, the irregularity of the everyday, and the pathos of longing in a mix of magic hour melodies, striking instrumentation, and tenderly charged vocals.

Beginning with the evocative, scene-setting opener ‘The True Sea’, a quicksilver seven minute arc that equally spans both the vastness of the universe and the intimacy of the bond between two people, ‘Strange Loop’ is the sound of expanding musical horizons: of guitarmonies colliding with baritone sax; relentlessly driving rhythms and pianos being pounded; whispered vocals and reckless yelps; abandonment and containment; Queen and Kraftwerk; a room full of guitars and a notepad full ideas.

‘Strange Loop’ reveals a super-charged Dempsey; his voice more potent and powerful than ever, his stories and characters magnified, his instrumentation more adventurous and playful. It’s an album that sounds like doing what you want, and actually getting it right. Most musicians would be content with being involved in a single much-loved project, especially one as constantly rewarded as Something for Kate (double figures for ARIA Awards nominations, winners of Triple J’s Album of the Year, multiple top ten albums), but ‘Strange Loop’ is confirmation that Dempsey will alternate between the beautifully rigorous noise he makes with Stephanie Ashworth and Clint Hyndman and his own diverse solo career.

‘Strange Loop’ contains compelling pocket universes, at once uniquely identifiable as one of our great artists at work, but also indicative of fresh forms. It’s a dazzlingly intimate record, alive to the very pleasure of being alive…

Shotgun Karaoke

Shotgun Karaoke is Paul Dempsey’s first covers collection.  Recorded in solo mode on acoustic guitar, this  limited edition album was released on both CD & digitally via iTunes HERE , the CD  is available from JB HiFi & Sanity & record stores. The 11 track CD version includes the bonus track, Web in Front (Archers of Loaf), while the 10 track digital version is released simultaneously worldwide via iTunes.

Recorded in an evening on acoustic guitar in the same spur- of -the- moment spirit in which they were originally performed, the Shotgun Karaoke album documents in one concise collection a selection of the cover songs that Paul performed in various backstage rooms whilst on tour with Something for Kate in 2013. These original cover performances can be viewed on the Something for Kate YouTube channel HERE 

Everything Is True

Everything is True is the first official Paul Dempsey solo album. Released in October 2009 the 11 track album featured Paul playing all instruments himself (with the exception of a couple of guest appearances ), debuted in the Top 5 and garnered great critical response and has gone on to achieve well beyond gold status.

The first single released from the album was Out the Airlock,  a beautiful, sparse folk- tinged track accompanied by some disarmingly dark lyrics while the second single, Ramona Was A Waitress, again displays Paul’s lyrical originality as he sings about a futuristic robot waitress arguing about mortality. Further singles from the album were  Fast Friends and Bats.

Scared Of Horses

Back in 1998 after the first Something for Kate album was released Paul Dempsey went into the studio to record some ideas. Before he knew it, he had recorded a whole album’s worth of music. But this time around Dempsey was hesitant to apply his own voice and lyrics and instead enlisted the help of various local luminaries from Australian bands to sing on the tracks.

The resulting album released under the name ‘Scared of Horses‘, and titled An Empty Flight was a beautiful collection of songs which, set to Dempsey’s one-man- band compositions showed his unique musical diversity along with the talents of some of Australia’s most innovative vocalists.

‘An Empty Flight’ features the lyrical and vocal talents of Glenn RIchards (Augie March), Jamie Hutchings (Bluebottle Kiss), Heinz Reigler (Not From There), Andrea Prudente (Arrosa), Dik (S:Bahn), Stephanie Ashworth (Sandpit, Something for Kate) and Laura Macfarlane (Ninety-nine).

After selling out its initial pressing in a flash, An Empty Flight  has been near impossible to find ever since and subsequently became a rare and highly collectible. It is now available via iTunes.