Workman Song is a peculiar little undertaking by an intriguing figure. With the purest intentions at heart, the result is a true labour of love and a force of faith. It is the solo project of Sean McMahon out of Brooklyn by way of Western Massachusetts.
He is slated as “part ghost, part Victrolaphone, part campfire storyteller”. Before you head to Google, a Victrolaphone is one of those early 1900’s phonographs that were tucked away inside a wooden cabinet to look like regular furniture. McMahon’s sound is definitely vintage but he certainly doesn’t pretend to be something he’s not. With his progressive Christian faith at the core, his folksy storytelling is honest and earnest.
As a Christian folk artist, Workman Song typifies the classic American traveling preacher sound. We’ve fallen in love with his voice and his beard.
When he doesn’t have his Workman hat on, McMahon plays bass in the band for his local “queer-friendly anarchist Episcopal church”, and coordinates “psychedelic improvisational music” for another equally progressive flock. His first solo effort Vllb was released back in 2006, where he first began to explore the wonders of creation and girl problems.
He describes feeling paralysed from writing a new record for the following eight years, releasing some lo-fi homemade singles, a holiday-themed EP in December 2013 as well as eight tracker The Way earlier that year, delving deeper into spiritual questions of death, pain, healing and love.
April this year saw him release another EP Lamb, the most introspective work to date, fleeced with typically haunting melodies that detail his spiritual journey to the centre of himself, with astonishing openness and sincerity.
In both his live shows and recordings, McMahon is often alone with just his acoustic guitar and voice – typified on the fervent gospel of No, It’s Not – and sometimes he is joined by a congregation of friends – Varmit boasts a full backing band with bass, percussion and even a horn section. His influences are apparent, exhibiting a mixture of classic and modern folk stylings like a Bob Dylan-Edward Sharpe fusion.
McMahon describes his latest release as all gospel and soul, a “collection of musical stories, hymns and lyrical parables”. His lyric writing is a form of catharsis and an admittedly religious experience, however he is quick to point out that his aim is not to evangelise anyone or compel them to join the church, he’s merely “happy to be singing and getting inside people’s hearts”.
You can find all his compositions available online for free, because his music is “a service of love and it ought to be free… I’m mainly just in the business of getting it out there into people’s ears”. ‘Murica.
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