We love iconoclasts at German Shepherd Records.

Cannonball Statman is a perfect example.

Well above average height (he is very tall), with a pre-Raphaelite mass of hair which appears to have a life of its own, and a battered  acoustic guitar, he is visually and aurally completely unique.

Some observers might describe his music as freak-folk, but he is much more than that.

Firstly we need to talk about his guitar technique. Unique doesn’t do it justice, blistering fast scribbles of notes and chords, traversing the fret board with manic intensity creating slabs of sound which move between epic and lyrical effortlessly. But he also plays slow with beautiful open chords creating more introspective sounds.

Secondly we need to talk about the words. Statman in a live setting needs your very close attention as words spill from his mouth with a rapidity and complexity that are unparalleled. If you were to draw a literary comparison authors like Kurt Vonnegut,Thomas Pynchon, Samuel Beckett and Paul Auster would leap to mind. His use of language is rich and his ultra fast delivery is stunning.

Sometimes his delivery is so rapid your brain is still processing the words long after the song has finished. Songs become short stories packed with characters and often feature New York as their backdrop. His live tour de force “Carlos Is On Fire” is a tale of an encounter in late night New York City which takes on a different form every night as Cannonball re-invents the song for each performance.

Sometimes he is melodic and restrained, sometimes he howls like a dog, sometimes he approaches the speed of light.

At a recent gig in Salford, that we hosted, open mouthed audience members left the concert room after Cannonball Statman’s set with one word on their lips – genius.

We are pleased to release our second EP with Cannonball – Cackles.

Two years ago we released a live EP from a gig in Salford

Cannonball, or Jesse, as his mum and dad call him, has a very prolific career outside of our work with him with 20 releases to date

The new four track EP  was recorded and engineered by Franz Rodeck at Culture Container in Berlin, Germany. on March 19th, 2017. It was also captured on video….

You can contact Cannonball via Facebook

Cackles is released on May 26th via Bandcamp, Spotify, I-Tunes, Amazon and many more digital outlets.