Liberation!

When liberation comes to mind, what do you think about Freedom Emancipation The removal of restrictions When you notice that Liberation! is the title of Peter Matthew Bauer’s debut solo album, such questions will inevitably arise. What’s he got to be liberated from, apart from 13 years as a member of The Walkmen Bauer uses Liberation! as an opportunity to welcome the rest of the world into his personal history of a childhood spent living in ashrams, and a life shaped by the constant presence of religion and mythology amidst uncertainty. It’s a bold, bracing collection of songs for the mind, body and spirit with the power to grab you and shake you out of your environment. What he’s learned, and what he imparts both on the title track and across the eleven songs that make up Liberation!, is a riot of experiential notions. “Liberation, as the idea of the record, relates to belief in its various incarnations. In a way I’m trying to poke fun at it; this Western idea of heaven, this Eastern idea that it will take a hundred lifetimes, or a thousand lifetimes to get somewhere better. You can be mad about these things, but you can also arrive at some sort of strange, joyful experience right now without believing anything.” Conceived largely on a sojourn all across Europe following the dissolution of the Walkmen, Liberation! was recorded at a factory space in the Port Richmond neighbourhood of Philadelphia with friends such as Quentin Stoltzfus, Christopher Colbert, Matt Oliver, and former bandmates Hamilton Leithauser and Matt Barrick taking part in the recording and mixing.