Inside Paul Simon’s Genre-Bending New Album ‘Stranger to Stranger’
Paul Simon spent the past five years painstakingly crafting his new album Stranger to Stranger (out June 3rd), knowing he’d have to create something extraordinary if he wanted it to stand up to the best work from his past. “There are a lot of preconceptions [about my new work] because I have been familiar to the public for 50 years,” he says. “They go, ‘Is it going to be Graceland? Is it going to be ‘Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard?’ Simon and Garfunkel? The Capeman?’ To get people to listen with open ears, you have to really make something that is interesting because people are prepared for it not to be interesting.”
The end result is Stranger to Stranger, an experimental album heavy on echo and rhythm that fuses electronic beats with African woodwind instruments, Peruvian drums, a gospel music quartet, horns and synthesizers. “I don’t set out to make each album different than the last one,” he says. “It’s just my natural inclination.”
Italian electronic dance music artist Clap! Clap! provides beats on the tracks “The Werewolf,” “Street Angel” and “Wristband,” the latter of which is now streaming. They met up in in 2015 when Simon’s world tour touched down in Milan, Italy. “My 23-year-old son Adrian is a composer and he told me about him,” says Simon. “He takes African sound samples and puts digital dance grooves behind it. His newest album is a masterpiece. He makes music sound new and old at the same time.”
Most of the album was recorded at Simon’s home studio in Connecticut, with Clap! Clap! and Simon communicating via e-mail. But in 2013, the sessions briefly moved to Montclair State University where unique, custom-made instruments, such as the Cloud-Chamber Bowls and the Chromelodeon, created by the mid-20 century music theorist Harry Partch, are stored. “Parch said there were 43 tones to an octave and not 12,” says Simon. “He had a totally different approach to what music is and had to build his own instruments so he could compose on a microtonal scale. That microtonal thinking pervades this album.”
The subject matter of the songs ranges from the ridiculous to the tragic. “Wristband” tells the hysterical tale of a rock star prevented from entering his own concert because he doesn’t have the proper wristband. “It’s not a true story,” says Simon. “But I know plenty of people with this story and there have been times where I’ve been stopped backstage and asked to see a pass.” “The Riverbank” was inspired by a visit to wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital and the funeral of a teacher Simon knew that was murdered in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. On a brighter note, “In The Garden of Edie” is a tribute to his wife Edie Brickell.