By Benjamin Joe
Ian McCuen is a songwriter out of Buffalo, New York; now living in Utah but with plans to come back to Buffalo in November to release his new album, “Westward to Nowhere” a folky-story made to music chronicling a journey across the States in the pioneer days of yester-year.
The idea of the narrative came to McCuen very early in their life, but it was pushed aside by another project called “Songs of Fleeting Permanence,” a three-part acoustic driven project examining their inner life.
The difference between the two are very striking. While “Westward to Nowhere” is in the realm of fiction, a classic story of hopeless Americana, “Songs of Fleeting Permanence” is like a diary, and so stripped down in classic bedroom DIY, that when the second album is experienced, it feels like there was an explosion of musical-creativity that was wrapped and rebuilt into a masterpiece of sound.
“That (Songs of Fleeting Permanence) came out of my college years, kind of processing a lot of the inner growth I went through in those years and kind of discovering a lot about myself and mental illness and things like that,” McCuen said of the first album in a Zoom interview in late September.
At the time of the interview, the young musician was finally living in the great wide-open of this country’s western deserts, but unlike their character, McCuen was embracing life in a way that brought stark contrast.
“I wanted to do a similar thing to ‘Songs of Fleeting Permanence’ but in a more cloaked and less direct way,” he said. “Because ‘Songs of Fleeting Permanence’ is very conventional, almost like a diary, while ‘Westward to Nowhere’ is a narrative. It’s a fictional narrative, but all the emotions and details definitely come from me and personal experience. It’s kind of taking the same ideas of growth and struggling with inner issues, your relationships, things like that, but again, putting it under the guise of a fictional narrative.”
One of the songs of this fictional narrative “Lonesome Homesteader” starts off with what sounds like a church organ at an open revival, which is followed by a wheel like melody that McCuen plays on guitar.
“I walk for miles at a time/daydreaming of a place that’s only mine/I talk to no one but myself/ Where I’m headed there’s no need for anyone else.”
String instruments then accompany the guitar’s melody.
The instruments recorded on this album include acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, theatre organ, electric piano, banjo, mandolin, six-string electric bass, percussion, drums, whistling, ebow, harmonica, accordion, train whistle and other samples. Also playing on it are Lissa Reed on cello, Sally Schaefer on violin, Tom Stocklosa, trombone, and mastering engineer Alex Wieloszynski.
The 18 song album will be released after a solo show at Nietzsche’s, November 10, on Allen St. in Buffalo, NY
Buffalo Music Players 