From dressing as Robin Hood at early gigs, to creating a movie set entirely out of papier-mâché, New Yorker Adam Green’s journey across indie’s fringes has been consistently unexpected but always endearingly charming. His emergence as one half of anti-folk duo The Moldy Peaches with Kimya Dawson inadvertently placed him at the heart of The Strokes-led rock & roll rebirth that echoed out from his home city, before the duo achieved cult status in Britain as the likes of The Libertines (also Rough Trade co-workers) bestowed a totemic status on the band and their iconoclastically hilarious single ‘Who’s Got The Crack’. While The Moldy Peaches’ music would later gain silver screen stardom with their song ‘Anyone Else But You’ being adopted as the centrepiece of 2007 Ellen Page-led comedy Juno (the track also starred in a very successful, though totally unlicensed toothpaste advert in South America around the same time) Green was already on the move.
Bolstering his homemade sounds with string flourishes, his deep vocals blossomed in these new surroundings turning him into an indie crooner of comically-tinged lyrics worthy of Belloc, while a joint album in 2013 with Little Joy’s Binki Shapiro proved unexpectedly suave and timeless.
Most recently multi-media projects have caught Green’s attention. Along with visual art shows, his movie Aladdin, shot on iPhones, boasted a host of his music pals, a YouTube influencer, Home Alone‘s McCauly Caulkin and the aforementioned papier-mâché, not to forget Green’s warm, if understandably surreal, soundtrack.
His forthcoming new album Engine Of Paradise – which includes performances by Florence Welch and Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado – sees Green returning the indie crooner turf with a musical maturity though, fortunately, no let up in his lyrical surrealism. Indeed, the record is accompanied by a satirical graphic novel entitled War And Paradise. "It was easier than making Aladdin," he muses of the drawing required for book. "But not that much. It took a year to make it. But I’m not letting anyone down I have a multi-media project on my hands." And we have a new melodic yet surreal universe to explore.
Adam Green releases new album Engine Of Paradise on September 6th and tours the UK this autumn. For tickets for his London date at EartH go here. Click the image of Adam Green below to begin reading his selections
