Get 'Roped In' To A Primitive Guitar Sound With North Americans This Week

[Cover photo credit to Lenny Grecco and Shane Hayden]

Instrumental outfit and "American Primitive Guitar Devotees", North Americans, have shared a single from their new album Roped In, which comes out this Friday, October 9 via Third Man Records. "Rainbow trout" colored vinyl will be available at select US and UK indie stores on release day, and Bandcamp-exclusive cassettes can be pre-ordered here.

You'll find album opener "Memory of Lunch" below:

On 2018’s Going Steady, Patrick McDermott blended his love of American Primitive guitar playing with collaborations with a wide range of artists from Julianna Barwick, to guitar prodigy Hayden Pedigo, as well as Cloud Nothings’ Dylan Baldi, and more.

Now, two years later, McDermott is releasing Roped In, an album that pulls back from the collaborative nature established on Going Steady featuring intricate but direct guitar playing and Pedal Steel work from Portland, Oregon’s Barry Walker.

McDermott says about crafting the album:

“Every time I picked up the guitar, I’d play something that made sense for what I was doing. I had like 40 demos and literally in one night I went into the studio with my guitar and I recorded all of the pieces. I selected 15 of those and sent them to Barry.”

Walker comments on the collaboration:

“[The guitar tracks] were little coherent packages. All of these different ideas bubbled up out of listening to these things—this texture and these little nuances that we were able to explore.”

Performances on the album are accented by collaborations from harpist Mary Lattimore and guitarist William Tyler.

McDermott concludes:

“I wanted to focus on the simplicity of the music. I didn’t want to be beholden to this massive goal of [making music] to see how progressive and experimental it could be. I was attempting to cherish the pureness of this type of music.”