Duping songumentaries

“We’ve been doing these song releases we coined ‘songumentaries,’” says Duping the Public singer/violinist Angie Walton. “We did our first release ‘Cold Sweet’ with Chris Hoffee at Chaos Recorders, and we just finished recording our second songumentary, ‘Tesla,’ with Mike Kamoo.”

The audio-visual releases feature behind-the-scenes recording footage for each song spotlighted. “We choose a studio that we think will be the best fit for the specific song we’re going to record. We base that choice on the belief that the engineer really becomes another member of the band at that point, and then we document the whole process and do interviews in the vein of a documentary. We release the songs as singles, à la the glory days of the 45, because we want people to fully digest that one single’s artistic expression for all that it is, in stark contrast to the disposable music mentality that exists these days.”

She feels people who enjoy things like DVD commentaries will appreciate the songumentary insights. “With the engineer interviews, we’re doing our best to really personalize them and bring things about in casual conversation....”

The last release from the Golden Hill–based alt-folk band was their debut EP The Matthew Effect in 2012. “It wasn’t until we found ourselves literally drowning in unrecorded originals that we finally pulled ourselves out of the band room and started laying tracks down again,” says Walton. “The newer sound is more dense and symphonic...‘Cold Sweet’ is a perfect example, it’s unlike anything on our initial EP, and ‘Tesla,’ well, that’s a whole other animal.”

“Tesla” is an ambitious proggy composition concerning storied inventor Nikola Tesla.

Duping the Public will debut the “Tesla” songumentary at the Tower Bar on September 3, for a bill that includes Gloomsday.