Saddleback, Tony Dupe - Everything's a Love Letter (2022) [Hi-Res]

Seminal album Everything’s a Love Letter by Saddleback (Tony Dupé) is to be released on vinyl for the first time by German boutique label Oscarson. Originally released on CD by Australian label Preservation in 2004, it sold out quickly and was re-released with bonus tracks of reinterpretations by Richard Skelton, Aaron Martin, Grand Salvo, Part Timer and others. Retaining the original Mark Gowing sleeve artwork and remastered for vinyl, Everything’s a Love Letter is a joyous and celebrated album. It is the sound of someone finding new identity and expression in the embrace of the seaside and solitude.

Saddleback was the moniker used by Tony Dupé for this album and the follow-up Night Maps (Preservation 2007). These records evolved over long periods in between producing albums for other songwriters and composers (including Holly Throsby, Jamie and Sophie Hutchings, Jack Ladder, Archer Prewitt, Grand Salvo) who would visit Dupé in various wooden cottages along the lush southern coast of NSW Australia.

Saddleback happened on days off from producing. On those off days, Dupé would slow down to explore piano, pump organs, guitar etc, whilst working on analog 8 track tape and an early DAW to combine live playing with loops or tape processing. The combination of live playing, room and external sounds together with subtle abstractions and splintered song structures is a distinctive model heard forming within this initial solo release. Everythings a Love Letter is the exploration of identity post- band, post- long term relationship, half the week spent exploring music alone and with friends in a tiny isolated town by the sea and the other half exploring music working in a record store in the busy heart of a city.

Everythings a Love Letter received wonderful reviews with musical comparisons as varied as Stars of the Lid, Morricone, Aphex Twin, Calexico, Low, Earth, Fennesz, The Necks, Kammerflimmer Kollektief and the Dirty Three.

Tracklist:
1 01. Saddleback - Seven Miles (03:54)
1 02. Saddleback - Sunlight Night (04:04)
1 03. Saddleback - Train South (04:50)
1 04. Saddleback - Nearly New (03:51)
1 05. Saddleback - Scramble To (03:49)
1 06. Saddleback - Early Seventies (01:38)
1 07. Saddleback - Polaroid Fade (04:33)
1 08. Saddleback - Inside Rain (03:47)
1 09. Saddleback - Remote Remorse (05:34)
1 10. Saddleback - Gerroa Thursday (06:15)