I CARE IF YOU LISTEN: Finnegan Shanahan’s The Two Halves on New Amsterdam Records
I CARE IF YOU LISTEN: Finnegan Shanahan’s The Two Halves on New Amsterdam Records
By Jarrett Goodchild
"Finnegan Shanahan is one of the many artists and composers that are trying to further blur the lines between concert music and pop music. Frank Zappa was one of the biggest pioneers to start tearing down the classical and popular music walls, and pop music figures such as Ben Folds and Thom Yorke have also taken up the mantle, but Shanahan’s music brings a contemplative and meditative spirit to this bold endeavor. His album The Two Halves on New Amsterdam Records features the group Contemporaneous, an ensemble of which Shanahan is a founding member. Shanahan wrote the song cycle that comprises the entire album with the intent to aurally follow a map of the Hudson River Railroad as it was in 1852 from the Catskills down to New Mexico–then, the narrative breaks away, traveling across the country and into space. The whole album showcases well thought out new song forms that explore beautiful timbral combinations mixed with well-used electronic effects and filters to help recreate Shanahan’s dreamlike past."