Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
Chris Staples, the one-man band known as Discover America, possesses one of the most casually compelling voices heard in recent memory. Devoid of self-conscious cool, snotty aggression and ostentatious distress, his voice maintains its uncanny charm while his song structures shift from romantic ballads to blues struts to dance-pop. His fully drawn characters, striking smiles, satirical statements (see the pro-conformity chant "Adjust") and emotional equations (the human heart as "one half wonder, one half true") all ring as true as his perfectly pitched narrator tone. At a lean 10 tracks and 38 minutes, Psychology still feels generous, thanks mostly to its surplus of arresting images and memorable melodies. - Alternative Press
Discography
Psychology
04/26/2005
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
Discover America is the most recent secretion of musical chameleon Chris Staples. It's a wound that has been oozing for almost a decade now. First with sorely missed angular-rock band twothirtyeight. Later with a Neil Young-esque solo career. Now he's back with a batch of quirky, hip, retro, upbeat tunes.
The appropriately titled debut album, "Psycholgy," is a journey to distant lands of jangly angular rock music. There we will find some carnival-esque melodies and some distant lo-fi hip hop beats...if you can imagine a ghetto blaster in some back alley pouring out it's coarse rythym. Loads of quirky guitar lines and walking bass. "Psychology" explores the human psyche from an objective point of view. "I wanted to point out how predicable and unoriginal we are," says Staples. Themes include the afterlife, the biology of human love, childhood, faking hipness, commanding females, social difficulty, and the relationship between faith/doubt.
"Psychology" is in stores now.
Chris resides in Seattle, Washington via sunny Florida. He installs kitchen cabinets and engineers independant records in his home studio, The Snake Ranch. He is 26 years old.
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