The Story
Damon McMahon began recording as Amen Dunes in 2006, working out of a trailer in the Catskills on largely improvised material he didn't initially intend to release. Love (2014) and Freedom (2018), both on Sacred Bones Records, built the project's reputation on folk- and psych-rooted songwriting.
Freedom's title track and centerpiece single, "Miki Dora," is named for the 1960s surfer Miklos "Miki" Dora — a gifted, self-destructive figure McMahon researched while writing about surf subculture and came to see as a stand-in for a morally complicated, self-sabotaging kind of masculinity.
Death Jokes (2024), released on Sub Pop, marked a sharp turn toward UK garage-influenced programmed drums, chopped loops and samples drawn from stand-up comedy, protests and raves — a departure from the folk-and-blues palette of McMahon's earlier records.
A remix companion, Death Jokes II, followed later the same year.
