Hunter Dragon

"Most songs I write get stuck in my head/It's 'cause I listen to them too much, I guess." With lyrics like these, it sounds as though Hunter Dragon's sole member, Joshua Hunter, spends a little too much time wearing playback headphones in his home studio. Some do-it-yourself discs get done...

By Jason Heller

April 6, 2006

[
        {
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Inline Content - Mobile Display Size",
          "component": "12017618",
          "insertPoint": "2",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "2"
        },{
          "name": "Editor Picks",
          "component": "17242653",
          "insertPoint": "4",
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "1"
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - MediumRectangle - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261320",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 8,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "7",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Inline Links",
          "component": "18838239",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        },{
          "name": "Air - Leaderboard Tower - Combo - Inline Content",
          "component": "17261321",
          "insertPoint": "8th",
          "startingPoint": 12,
          "requiredCountToDisplay": "11",
          "maxInsertions": 25
        }
      ]

"Most songs I write get stuck in my head/It's 'cause I listen to them too much, I guess." With lyrics like these, it sounds as though Hunter Dragon's sole member, Joshua Hunter, spends a little too much time wearing playback headphones in his home studio. Some do-it-yourself discs get done to death this way, but Hunter has managed to turn self-obsession into madcap laughs with his debut full-length. What surely began as fourteen song sketches has been tweaked and mangled into a non-stop, 21-minute knot of disjointed pop, narcotized bleats and hallucinatory interludes that wrestle with each other like octopus tentacles. Top it off with ingrown loops and dub-ventilated ambience, and you've got a complex, perplexing and brilliant album of avant-folk that benefits, rather than suffers, from a few too many hours of being baked.

KEEP WESTWORD FREE... Since we started Westword, it has been defined as the free, independent voice of Denver, and we'd like to keep it that way. Your membership allows us to continue offering readers access to our incisive coverage of local news, food, and culture with no paywalls. You can support us by joining as a member for as little as $1.