Puritan Themes by Holy Sons
Holy Sons is the solo project of Emil Amos (Grails, Om, Lilacs & Champagne). Puritan Themes is his 17th album, his 4th for Thrill Jockey Records and a tentpole album in his wide-ranging output. Puritan Themes’ relaxed aura is focused through a laid-back west coast 70's lens, injecting Amos’ wry wit and tinges of darkness into lush songs that drift like dreamy, featherlight clouds.
Puritan Themes is a record that knowingly, barely fits into the modern world. When mixing the record in Chicago throughout summer of 2025, every day Amos would skate through Douglass Park listening to 70's AM radio and doze off at night to early Bee Gees interviews. The earliest concept of the record was based around the track "Chain Gang". Amos explains: “It’s an imaginary take on if Cat Stevens had smoked a ton of salvia and taken a much darker route within the world of dense, story-telling songwriting." An existential fairy tale built off of American legends like Cool Hand Luke and John Henry, 'Chain Gang' is the heart of the political stance of Puritan Themes, recalling Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle with its final lines 'A thousand idiot's eyes are focused on the one diseased prize'. The track “Raw & Disfigured” borrows its name from the last Thrill Jockey Holy Sons record, in a referential move that's stolen from how Led Zeppelin separated the track “Houses of the Holy” from the record of the same name (again harkening back to 70's lore).
Everything is recorded, performed and mixed by Amos. Amos has been a beacon in the world of home-production for decades now, a progenitor and godfather of modern bedroom-pop and one-man-orchestras, making dense, organic sounding arrangements primarily on his own. His free-wheeling, adventurous spirit as a producer mirrors his cerebral and sprawling landmark podcast “Drifter’s Sympathy,” which feels inexorably tied to his practice of home recording. The album features Kelly Pratt (David Byrne, M Ward) playing and arranging the horns on "Chain Gang”. In addition to playing guitar and drums which Amos is most known for playing live, Puritan Themes features all the staple instruments of Holy Sons: mellotron, lap steel, various drum machines and the Akai MPC sampler. Notable is Amos’ obsessive and unusual approach to mixing, repeatedly bouncing down instruments and applying pitch-bending or re-rooming plug-ins that obscure the original sound sources.
Puritan Themes steps out of time and reaches back to 70's sounds in order to escape the machinations of the current world. The compositions return to a more innocent ground floor when listeners had the time to sit with an entire album and let the lyrics sink in. Tune in and Tune out.
Tracklist
| 1. | Puritan Themes | 2:43 |
| 2. | Raw & Disfigured | 4:56 |
| 3. | Stand Up Straight Again | 4:03 |
| 4. | Radio Seance | 2:46 |
| 5. | Everything | 2:38 |
| 6. | Edge of the Bay | 3:30 |
| 7. | Chain Gang | 4:31 |
| 8. | Fully Burnt | 3:46 |
| 9. | One Divining Rod | 10:06 |
Credits
Produced & Played by Emil Amos. Mastered by Carl Saff.
Cover Photo & Wurlitzer on ‘Fully Burnt’ by Casey Proctor.
Horn Arrangement on ‘Chain Gang’ by Kelly Pratt.
Juno on ‘Radio Seance’ and ‘One Divining Rod’ by Tyler Trotter.
‘Puritan Themes’ & ‘Chain Gang’ recorded at Forest Grove Farm in Georgia.
‘Raw & Disfigured’ recorded at the Pencil Factory in Greenpoint by Mike Kutchman.
‘Stand Up Straight Again’ recorded in Bushwick on the corner of Stockholm and Myrtle.
‘Radio Seance’ recorded in Portland, Oregon in Jake’s bed.
‘Everything’ recorded in Chicago on the edge of Douglass Park.
‘Edge of the Bay’ recorded at Sonic Youth’s studio in Hoboken by Ernie Indradat.
‘Fully Burnt’ & ‘One Divining Rod’ recorded at home in North Carolina.
