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May 07, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by Michael Schmelling

Amen Dunes (aka Damon McMahon) is releasing a new album, Death Jokes, this Friday via Sub Pop, his first album for the label. Now he has shared its fourth single, “Rugby Child,” via a music video. Watch it below.

“The song was written in April 2020, and flips between memories of touring, and that present moment of spring,” McMahon explains in a press release. “A musician from New York I had known had just overdosed. He wasn’t named Annie, but she stands in for him out of respect.”

Previously he shared its first single, “Purple Land,” via a music video. It was one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared its second single, “Boys,” via a music video. It was also one of our Songs of the Week. Then he shared its third single, the nine-minute long “Round the World,” via a music video. He also announced some new tour dates.

Death Jokes follows Amen Dunes’ acclaimed 2018 album, Freedom, which was released on Scared Bones, and his 2021 single, “Feel Nothing,” which featured British duo Sleaford Mods and was his first single for Sub Pop.

Death Jokes went through a long birthing process, with work starting in 2019. McMahon was beset by health issues in 2020, including COVID-19, and lost 30 pounds. In recent years his first child was born and he moved cross country from Los Angeles to Woodstock, NY. McMahon also struggled to find collaborators who could line up with his vision for the album. Eventually he ended up working with jazz bassist Sam Wilkes and producers Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray) and Kwake Bass (Tirzah, Dean Blunt), as well as doing sessions with Panoram and Money Mark. The final album includes samples sourced from YouTube videos, including standup routines from Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.

Read our 2018 interview with Amen Dunes on Freedom.

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