Painted Saints
Paul Fonfara is a man awash in image and sound as the writer, guitarist and clarinetist behind Painted Saints. A transplant to Minneapolis from Denver, where Fonfara cut his teeth playing in the original lineup of DeVotchKa, then moved on to record and tour internationally with bands like 16 Horsepower/Woven Hand, and with Jim White on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label. When Fonfara settled in Minneapolis six years ago, his well-honed and exploratory talents were immediately recognized as he became a member of local favorites Spaghetti Western String Co., balancing the precision and delicacy of that band with the raucous playfulness of the Brass Messengers, and the odd cinematic twists of Dreamland Faces.
Throughout all of his time working with other bands and collaborators, Painted Saints has remained Fonfara’s outlet for his own songwriting. A talented painter, his songs become sprawling sonic landscapes of visually imagistic lyrics, often as melancholic and forceful as they are shimmering and lovely. The previous two entries into the Painted Saints discography, 2006’s Company Town and 2007’s The Bricks Might Breathe Again, share a lot in common with his work with other bands, with more focus on Spaghetti Western and Slavic-style orchestrations, building on a chamber-folk sound.
For No Match for Greater Minds, Fonfara takes a more dense and aggressive approach to his songs for the downtrodden. Populated by escapist dreamers, flailing underdogs, and children’s imagined civil wars, the songs on No Match for Greater Minds move past the folk sound and into a wider view of sound in nature. Driven by seething electric guitars matched by swirling strings, choirs, and Fonfara’s own plaintive voice, the songs are built for thunder and also built for silence, leading the listener on a journey through Fonfara’s minds eye. Enlisting members of The Poor Nobodys, Roma di Luna, Dreamland Faces and Breaksea Caravel to help him realize this new record, on No Match for Greater Minds, Paul is joined by:
Chris Hepola – drums/piano Channy Moon Casselle – vocals
Josh Granowski – bass Andy McCormick – saw
Christa Schneider – violin/cello/erhu/backing vocals
Will Dockendorf – lap steel guitars
