Sun Tunnels is a recording/performing project of Seattle-based songwriter/singer Louis O’Callaghan. Louis is me, I’m writing this.
Old Haunts Volume 1
Old Haunts is an EP series concept and play on words about some songs that I started writing, wrote or started recording a long time ago in different places and never finished. They swim around in various hard drives, resurfacing now and again and making nuisance of themselves until I can finally say that they’re “done enough.”
Volume 1 contains 3 unreleased songs, 2 of which (“Fruit Fly,” “Saturday”) are very very old and one of which (“I Guess Not”) is only very old, plus one unreleased instrumental (“Talking House”). I released “Bastards” on my second album as the Graze, but I didn’t like the mix, this one is better.
Released November 6, 2017
Performed and recorded by Louis O’Callaghan, except:
Drums on “I Guess Not” by Terry Kyte
Bass on “I Guess Not” by the late Sugar McGuinn
Sample on “Talking House” from a low power FM transmission by some real estate agent I haven’t met
Mastered by Rachel Field
Sequencing help from Seth Howard, Susan O’Callaghan, Shannon Garcia
All songs 2017 Louis O’Callaghan, BMI
Full size artwork link:
More About Sun Tunnels
What it is:
I mainly write songs for voice and guitar. It’s like folk, but I don’t write about the Depression, or about rivers, or John Henry. Lyrically I keep it pretty abstract, and my instinct is toward darker more melancholic sounds. But not always!
People have said I sound like Elliott Smith, Beck, Nick Drake, Jeff Mangum, Jeff Tweedy, and Thom Yorke. I do not mind that they said or printed that.
What it was:
From 2012 to 2015 I worked on some songs with Sarah McGuinn of the Fading Collection and Sugar McGuinn, her husband, whom I knew from lots of bands. Sarah worked on interpreting, arranging and recording a number of songs from that time, playing multiple instruments and singing, and Sugar played bass. Sugar was in a motorcycle accident and died in 2016, and in 2017 I started up again as a solo project.
One of our songs as a group was “Notice Me” which appeared on Ball of Wax Volume 34, was a KEXP song of the day and also appeared on the Music That Matters podcast #398.
Booking:
Contact us to talk about shows.
Influences?
I have at times been obsessed with Led Zeppelin, Neutral Milk Hotel, Cat Power, Mirah, the Microphones, the Softies, the Shins, Death Cab for Cutie, Soundgarden, Built to Spill, Low, Azure Ray, Nirvana, the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Modest Mouse, and Radiohead. More recently I don’t obsess much, but still find time to like things.
“Sun Tunnels.”
Other types of sun tunnel include an art installation in Utah (which is where I saw the name), and tubular skylights.
Other projects:
I’m half of Lux Fontaine, was a third of An Invitation to Love, used to be in Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, and was in Rosyvelt.
Go here for more writing about this.