Darkside Paper Trails

With the cover art for Paper Gods, Duran Duran cheekily revisit icons of their past: the smile of Rio, the cap of the "Chauffeur," girls on film, and a prowling tiger. Thirty years in, Duran Duran are comfortable enough to play with their past, comfortable enough to draw an explicit connection to their back pages by hiring Nile Rodgers – who helmed Notorious back in the day – to do a bit of production alongside Mark Ronson, the hitmaker who gave the group a refurbishment on 2010's All You Need Is Now…

“This record really goes back to that strange early Duran mix: the hard-edged pop coexisting with the dark, weird and experimental,” says John Taylor of the album’s development. Working with renowned LA-based artist Alex Israel, the stunning box set release of Paper Gods seeks to replicate that unease. Mining Hollywood for inspiration as “the world’s primary desire factory”, Israel’s artwork encourages fans to search beyond perceptible positivity for signs of darkness in the artwork.

For singer/songwriter Becca Stevens, making music is a charmed form of service—a means of mining her own experience for insight into the beautiful complexity of being alive, in the hopes of providing others with understanding and solace and a renewed sense of strength. But in the early days of 2023, the North Carolina-bred artist felt an overwhelming need to process two monumental changes in her life (the death of her mother and the start of her own journey into motherhood), and soon sought the comfort and catharsis of pure self-expression. By the time she emerged from that period of unfettered creativity, Stevens had completed her new album Maple to Paper: an illuminating glimpse into her most private moments of grief and transcendence, rendered with both stunning clarity and heartfelt devotion to music’s alchemical powers.

Paper is the debut solo album from Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson. This album contains brand new material along with songs that were initially written for Robinson's 2002-2003 project, Hookah Brown. Robinson handled guitar, bass, and other instruments as well as taking over the lead vocals, with the gaps being filled in by Joe Magistro (drums), Eddie Harsch (keyboards, credited as Eddie Hawrsch), Donnie Herron (fiddle, violin) and his son Taylor Robinson (percussion).

Premiata Forneria Marconi, better known in English speaking countries as P.F.M., were arguably the finest Italian Progressive rock band of the 1970s and certainly one of the most well known. A successful act in their homeland, they came to international attention when they signed to Emerson, Lake and Palmers label Manticore in 1973…

Duran Duran - Paper Gods (2015) {Warner Bros.}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 488 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 167 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 25 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2015 Warner Bros. Records | 9362-49251-4
Rock / Dance Rock / Synth Pop / Contemporary Pop

With the cover art for Paper Gods, Duran Duran cheekily revisit icons of their past: the smile of Rio, the cap of the "Chauffeur," girls on film, and a prowling tiger. Thirty years in, Duran Duran are comfortable enough to play with their past, comfortable enough to draw an explicit connection to their back pages by hiring Nile Rodgers – who helmed Notorious back in the day – to do a bit of production alongside Mark Ronson, the hitmaker who gave the group a refurbishment on 2010's All You Need Is Now. Most of the record, however, bears credits either by Mr. Hudson or Josh Blair, two younger musicians who help give Paper Gods a bit of a contemporary glint.

With the cover art for Paper Gods, Duran Duran cheekily revisit icons of their past: the smile of Rio, the cap of the "Chauffeur," girls on film, and a prowling tiger. Thirty years in, Duran Duran are comfortable enough to play with their past, comfortable enough to draw an explicit connection to their back pages by hiring Nile Rodgers - who helmed Notorious back in the day - to do a bit of production alongside Mark Ronson, the hitmaker who gave the group a refurbishment on 2010's All You Need Is Now. Most of the record, however, bears credits either by Mr. Hudson or Josh Blair, two younger musicians who help give Paper Gods a bit of a contemporary glint. While there are nods at the '80s and even the '90s arriving in the form of samples, synthesizers, and power ballads, Paper Gods is an aggressively modern album, living in the oversaturated world where emojis and gifs battle in perpetual motion…