Hans Chew’s music explores the existential. Beginning with 2010’s Tennessee & Other Stories…and continuing on 2014’s Life & Love, his albums have revolved around finding meaning in life, death, love and rebirth. Now on his latest release Chew drives deeper at the essence of the matter: From where does the human soul emerge? From what obscurity arises the urge to create? In Sailing To Byzantium, W.B. Yeats describes the human heart: “sick with desire, and fastened to a dying animal, it knows not what it is…”. Or in Hans Chew’s words on this his third album: The human animal is of unknown sire.
As the themes Chew explores on Unknown Sire are expanded, so is the material. The familiar sonic territory of opening track ‘Easy Money’ with its boogie piano and laid back Tulsa groove recedes quickly from view, its cynical lyric serving almost as notice that these are merely headwaters. The album shifts tones into the erstwhile title track ‘Tell Me’, whereupon its journey begins in earnest: “What are you afraid of? Is it everything unknown, is it what you’re made of?” Not unusually, Chew’s writing here spans multiple genres, but the recordings mark the first appearance of synthesizers in his work, and tracks like ‘Early Light Waltz’, ‘No Existe’, and ‘The Sign’ blur the lines between psych-rock, folk, electro and R&B, while also melding concepts of the beginning of time, the passing of time, the illusion of time, and the end of times.
Unknown Sire was recorded by long-time Chew collaborator Jason Meagher at Black Dirt Studio, who plays multiple instruments on the album, and was mixed by Jeff Ziegler at Uniform Recordings.
Perhaps best known for his keyboard work with artists such as Steve Gunn, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Jack Rose, Hans Chew has established himself as a versatile singer, songwriter, and performer in his own right. A native Tennessean, Chew’s style has been described in wide fashion, with comparisons to artists like James Booker, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Feat, Nirvana, Little Richard, and Leon Russell. 2010’s Tennessee & Other Stories…received four stars from Rolling Stone and was heralded by Uncut as one of the top 25 albums of the year. 2014 saw the release of Chew’s second LP, Life & Love, which Classic Rock magazine called “an excellent album, a further development of the sound Chew revealed on his debut…”, while Popmatters proclaimed the record “Dixie-fried rock ’n’ roll awesomeness…a barn burning smoker of a record that’s simply irresistible.”
Also a dynamic live performer, iTunes’s Music Editor sums it up: “Hans Chew cranks up the tempo and the manic rock ’n’ roll performance until it feels like you’ve landed in the early ‘70s, when Derek & The Dominos were piecing together Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs and The Rolling Stones were waiting around Nellcote to record the bits and pieces of Exile On Main St.”.
Chew lives and works in New York City.
Artist’s website: http://hanschew.com/
‘Early Light Waltz’:
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