Papercuts New Album & Tour Details

• 9th Apr 2009

Jason Quever aka Papercuts was raised on a commune in Humboldt County, California. Orphaned at a young age Jason travelled up and down the US West Coast before finally settling in San Francisco in the late 90s.

Papercuts began initially as a 4 track recording project, in 2001. Around the same time Jason started recording and performing with local San Franciscan bands – including production duties on Cass McCombs' debut album “Not the Way” in 2002, and working on records by the Skygreen Leopards and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone amongst others.

Jason recorded his first album as Papercuts (entitled Mockingbird) in 2004 – it was released that year on local San Fran indie label Antennae Farm. Following this he set up his own recording studio Pan American Recording Studios which he filled to the rafters with vintage analogue equipment. Jason went on to record and play on records by Port O’Brien (currently recording their second album), The Donkeys, Still Flyin’, Donovan Quinn, The Skygreen Leopards, Vetiver and Devendra Banhardt and many more local west coast luminaries.

However, he had not forgotten Papercuts and returned in 2007 with Cant Go Back, a beautifully set of songs which garnered great press (Pitchfork gave Cant Go Back an 8.3 and Spin said Papercuts were one of the top 5 emerging San Franciscan bands). The album was released on Devandra Banhardt and Andy Cabic of Vetiver’s label Gnomonsong. Support tours with Beach House, Grizzly Bear and Vetiver saw Papercuts’ stock rise. Jason subsequently joined the Beach House live band playing drums on their 2008 tour.

Once free from Beach House duties 2008 Jason started on his third album You Can Have What You Want this time touching on '80s/'90s Creation and 4AD records, The Zombies, 60's French pop and even CAN's Future Days. You Can have What You Want is built on pulsing bass and Kraut-via-Ringo drum rhythms, with Jason's fragile falsetto draped in a distorted reverb gauze. All the tracks were recorded on to tape because, as Jason says, “it just sounds better” and the album features contributions from Beach House's Alex Scally and Graham Hill.

Says Jason: “my only real conscious effort with this record was to be more explorative, to find arrangement and sound territory that I hadn't covered”. He was also heavily under the influence of the original Twilight Zone series: “I bought the DVDs and watched them a ton while I was writing the record,” says Quever, “and it's clear to me that the shows mysterious, melancholic vibe seeped into album”.

You Can have What You Want is a moving gem of an album, a summer memory refracted through a lens, misty in the middle as well as at the edges, illuminated from within as a glow brings out a haze.

Papercuts play live in April as follows (plus expect appearances at festivals later in the year including End of the Road and more)… :

9 Apr 2009 Deaf Institute w/My Latest Novel, Manchester
10 Apr 2009 The Clarendon, Hartlepool
11 Apr 2009 Bird On The Wire, Bardens Boudoir, London
12 Apr 2009 Freebutt, Brighton
13 Apr 2009 Rough Trade Instore (6pm), London
14 Apr 2009 Café de La Danse, Paris
15 Apr 2009 The Cellar, Oxford
16 Apr 2009 Sonic Cathedral @ The Legion, London
17 Apr 2009 Buffalo Bar, Cardiff