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“I can hear music in the stars/I can paint pictures with my voice,” claims singer/ songwriter Kurt Baumann in “Music in the Stars,” one of the songs on The Burned, the name of his solo debut project, the result of a lifetime chasing his muse.
Born in San Antonio, and growing up in a rural East Texas town, his parents separating when he was three, Kurt and his sister lived their teen years with their father, an airline pilot who once worked for the Prime Minister of Lebanon, in such exotic locales as Saudi Arabia and Germany. As a child, his favorite singer was Willie Nelson, but he also listened to master storytellers like Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson before his sister turned him on to rock & roll, eventually drawing him to visionaries such as John Lennon, Jim Morrison and David Bowie. Although he played in a grunge-style punk garage band while in Germany, then was a member of the popular jam band Kan’nal, he traveled a long road to write his solo bow that took him to a mystical, transcendent experience in an abandoned mining town tucked away among the mountains of Mexico where he wrote much of the album.
“People have described my music as kind of spooky and dark,” says Baumann, much of its inspiration coming from the parched terrain of his home state that has produced a musical melting pot of country, blues, soul, rock, R&B and psychedelic sounds. “I needed to fulfill this vision by going back to my Texas roots.”
That background can be heard in songs like the sun-baked “Where Are We Now,” with its jangling guitars, whispered vocals and a cappella choir; the distorted rock guitars of “Monster;” the loping, atmospheric “What We Know;” the sensual blues of “Hard Lesson;” the ominous, Pink Floyd acid strains of the sci-fi “Man Running;” and the soaring chamber string sextet which climaxes “Make Believe” as Kurt urges us to “remember what it’s like to play God” and “make believe in miracles again.”
“I’ve always dipped into elements of the subconscious as a writer,” he says, calling Carl Jung one of his favorite authors. “Some of the sounds I choose trigger those feelings of something underneath the surface, hidden from view. It started out as an acoustic record, like Ray LaMontagne or Damien Rice, but then I began working with synthesizers, plug-ins and electric guitars during the recordings and the songs began to organically evolve with these electronic and atmospheric elements.
A vocalist from the time he could walk, Kurt would sing country songs for his elementary school show-and-tell, always knowing he had a stage presence, but it wasn’t until he gave up music, traveled to Mexico, and had a number of explorative journeys and experiences that he found he had something to write about.
“I wanted to find a deeper thing within myself to present to the world,” he says.
Biblical references dot songs like “Where Are We Now,” “What We Know” and “That’s Life,” which express that existential journey, while “Hard Lesson,” “Listen” and “More Than I Want” deal with relationships and the more emotional side of that path. The acoustic “Time” even features a duet with his partner, singer/songwriter Katie Gray. Throughout, Baumann is like a shaman, providing spiritual signposts for listeners in his musical visions.
“I’m not trying to preach, but rather share my views with others,” he says. “I’m fascinated with the desert visions of Native Americans, the whole make-up of that subconscious realm. It’s like those ceremonies that are thousands of years old and tap into the underlying grid of what’s real. I’m trying to put that mystery and magic into the music without having people judge it. Mainly, I want it to be good music to listen to, but to also trigger something a little deeper inside.”
There’s an apocalyptic, end-of-days feel to music on The Burned, but Baumann insists he’s a glass-half-full kind of guy, leaving the choice up to us. |
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