New Threats from the Soul is a masterclass in reducing the sublime to the prosaic, immensity to infinitesimally, and vice versa (the trick can only work both ways). Everything in our universe is essentially flotsam or jetsam, rubbish heaps of fragments and shards. We, especially, are jerry-rigs of bubblegum and driftwood, inconsistencies and incoherencies, dead dreams and necrophagous hopes. The record functions in parallel with Kafka’s winking dictum that there is an infinite amount of hope in the universe, just not for us. New Threats suggests that maybe, just maybe, something like redemption is possible, but only once we’re entirely emptied out and hawked in toto down at Walden Pawn.
“New Threats from the Soul [is] a beautiful and wildly smart record about making do in an upside-down world.” — Amanda Petsurich, The New Yorker
“If you don’t know it yet, it’s my privilege to tell you that Ryan Davis is one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.” — Nathan Salsberg
