Daniel Patrick Quinn is offering free downloads of his new compilation A Drink With Bishop Berkeley to anyone who emails him.
The record, conceived as an introduction to both his solo work and output with cult avant-rock group One More Grain, is available to listen to now via bandcamp. It comes after last year’s I, Sun, which was among tQ’s top albums of 2016.
Anyone who emails the musician at danpquinn@gmail.com requesting a free download code for the album will receive one.
Our Q&A with Quinn about the release of the new compilation is continued below, while you can read him taking us through his 13 favourite albums in our Baker’s Dozen feature here.
What’s the thinking behind the compilation and how did you choose the music on it?
Daniel Patrick Quinn: Nearly a thousand free codes available for a download of this compilation on Bandcamp, which serves as an introduction to work by myself and One More Grain over the past decade or so.
What is the main thread that you think connects all of these pieces?
DQ: As always, the main element that binds all these tracks together is the underlying drone. The best pieces of music need no more that two chords – anything else is a contrived diversion from what matters, and an attempt to keep the listener interested in what he or she should already be immersed in anyway. Just ask La Monte Young. The tracks on this compilation undoubtedly share many themes and preoccupations lyrically-speaking, but leave those for the listener to unravel in good time.
Is this the end of a phase of music for DPQ/the Grain?
DQ: Yes, it is the end of a phase, the surrealist phase, or certainly the phase in which surrealism played a leading role.
And who and why was Bishop Berkeley?
DQ: Bishop Berkeley was an Irish philosopher. I don’t actually agree with him but I reckon he would be fun to go drinking with. If in London I would take him to the Lyceum Tavern and be seated in one of those little carriage-like booths. More importantly, whilst his conclusions are probably untrue, his immaterialist belief system is one of great appeal to those who think enjoying life as an aesthetic phenomenon is central to our existence. As Laurie Anderson was quoted saying in The Guardian a few days ago, ‘life is a constant hallucination’. This smple sentence is at least a third of all anyone needs to know.
As for the next album, I intend to use even less instruments than last time and focus on what the voice can do. Like it or not, that 10CC single sounds remarkbly unique even today. I have also been humbled by archival recordings of tribes from Papua New Guinea – mesmeric sound from such simple ingredients, like a tomato soup with such depth and subtleties that minestrone for example seems preposterous.
I still feel like an anthropologist.
