Album Review: Kyle Bobby Dunn and The Infinite Sadness

In name alone, Kyle Bobby Dunn sounds like he should be a racecar driver.

But to my knowledge, Kyle Bobby Dunn does not drive a racecar. He does, however, craft majestic and minimal drones, and his new 3xLP (or 2xCD) Kyle Bobby Dunn and The Infinite Sadness, is nothing short of an incredible and gorgeous accomplishment.

The long gestation and roll out of Infinite Sadness is akin to Dunn’s deliberately slow “molasses up a hill” performance style, and it began back in October of 2013 with the unveiling of the song “Boring Foothills of Foot Fetishville.” It is worth noting at this point that in a genre that can take itself too seriously, Dunn never loses his sense of humor—just look at the album title itself, as well as these gems of song titles: “Variations on A Theme by St-Dipshit,” Duckfaced Fantasy,” and “The Same (Drunk in Quebec & In Love Club Remix.)”

It’s really hard to get a solid grasp on an album of this magnitude. Spanning 19 tracks, Infinite Sadness clocks in at a staggering 2 hours and 10 minutes—and while it is a delicate and reserved listen, it is unrelenting in its depth of emotion.

About five years ago, when Facebook had one of many different layouts, there was an option to “say something about yourself” under your profile picture. A friend of mine had put “same, same, but different,” under his—it’s apparently the name of German autobiographical novel, as well as a film—but it’s the expression that came to mind when listening to this record.

Dunn’s main instrument is the guitar—creating multiple layers of tones using an E-Bow—but if we’re being #hunnest here, you can only play minimalist guitar in so many ways before it starts to sound the same. The line that Dunn walks on Infinite Sadness is that throughout the 19 pieces, they all have a very familiar, somber, comforting feeling to them, but at the same time, there is a uniqueness in each one. Also, despite its best effort not to (with the running time and everything) it actually comes off as being more accessible of a listen when compared to Dunn’s previous LPs, like the equally charming in name Bring Me The Head of Kyle Bobby Dunn.

Despite the obvious wink to the Smashing Pumpkin’s double album of nearly the same name, there is an actual infinite sadness found on this LP. As the pieces unravel slowly, there is a terrible and beautiful sense of loss, longing, heartbreak, imagination, wonder, and even hope found within. Look no further than “Variations on A Theme by St-Dipshit” if you want an example of how all those emotions can be crammed into a single track.

With an album like Kyle Bobby Dunn and The Infinite Sadness, Dunn has created a soundtrack for every moment of your life, if you want every moment of your life to be as meaningful as humanly possible—every time you look out the window and see a piece of cottonwood float by becomes a vast, cinematic experience. Time kind of becomes meaningless as you let Infinite Sadness take over and lure you into its many layers. It’s a hypnotic, reassuring, remarkable listen—all the hyperbole in the world doesn’t do it justice.

It’s something that you just need to open yourself up to and let Dunn’s gentle cascades and ripples of melancholic guitar waves wash over you.

Kyle Bobby Dunn and The Infinite Sadness is out now as a 3xLP, 2xCD, or single download, via Students of Decay.