After 25 years of Herman Dune and 15 albums, BB*ISLAND is excited to present Odysseús, a new collection of songs that takes the listeners on a journey through the turbulent life of David Ivar, a journey of longing, pain, love, death, faith, and redemption. It's the first time that Herman Dune is working with an outside producer, David Garza. The set-up has been almost all acoustic instruments, recorded live with the band in one room. It’s Folk music in the typical style of Herman Dune with touches of Americana, Country, Jewish, and Hispanic traditions, but with a quite new twist in sound and arrangements, especially compared to his latest all acoustic trilogy of "The Portable Herman Dune".

‘The album started when I found myself caught between worlds. Stuck in Montréal, waiting for my paperwork to clear so I could return home to California after being forced by an emergency to travel to Europe during the pandemic travel ban, I was the sole occupant in an empty and closed-off hotel in the Jewish-Italian neighborhood of Mile End. Every day, I'd go visit Leonard Cohen's grave on Mont Royal, leaving a rock or a flower, praying that I would soon be able to return to my wife and our three cats in Los Angeles.

That deep sense of longing was the spark that ignited this album, a journey that took years to write. By the time I felt ready to record, I had made it back home, married the love of my life, had the best tour of my career with The Portable Herman Dune, and was working towards permanent status in the U.S. I had also been improving my bluegrass mandolin skills, and life was finally looking up. But when I looked back at the songs, at the pain and relief of the journey, it felt like an Odyssey _ the greatest one of my life. That's when I decided to name the album Odysseús. Coincidentally, Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey had just been released, and the joy I found in reading it made everything fall into place. That's when I met David Garza. It was pure chance _ I was struggling with a violin arrangement for one of the songs when he sat down at my table in a crowded café in downtown San Pedro and asked what I was working on. David, a Grammy-winning producer and musician, had worked with Fiona Apple, Iron & Wine, John C. Reilly, and The Milk Carton Kids, and had played with some of my musical heroes, like Lucinda Williams and Townes Van Zandt. We immediately clicked, and he offered to produce my songs.

We began playing the tunes every evening at my house, and once a week at a French restaurant called Le Compagnon. David knew the best musicians in LA _ folks like Sebastian Steinberg on upright bass (Fiona Apple), Richard Edson (drummer for Sonic Youth, actor in Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise and Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing), Odessa (violin, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros), and Paul J. Cartwright (violin, Olivia Rodrigo). When we felt ready, we gathered everyone at my house for three days of live sessions. It was a chaotic, beautiful process, with everyone in the room playing together, no headphones, no overdubs _ just raw, real music.

The sessions were recorded and mixed by Chris Sorem, a Grammy-winning producer known for his work with LA legends Los Lobos. He brought a truckload of vintage microphones and focused on `room mics' _ the mics that capture the ambiance of the space. He said it was a technique used on albums like Buena Vista Social Club, and it created a magic in the room that was palpable.

Even the saddest songs came to life with so much joy, energy, and electricity. The recordings were unfiltered, organic, and full of soul. By the time we started mixing, we were all amazed by how this music had come together, capturing a moment in time that also felt timeless.’ -David Ivar Herman Dune

A1. La Brume (Odysseús Intro)
A2. Odysseús
A3. Tune Out
A4. Sneakers On The Telephone Line
A5. Buffoon Of Love
A6. Into The Darkness Indeed
A7. Grenache (Odysseús Interlude)
B1. 369 (The Sun Gon’ Shine)
B2. Head Against The Wall
B3. A River Keeps Running (When A Good Man Dies)
B4. Moonlight On Gaffey Street
B5. Viduy וִדּוּי (Confession)