Papercuts

Papercuts are a soft indie pop project centered around Jason Robert Quever, who was brought up in a commune in Humboldt County, California. He traveled up and down the West Coast, eventually settling in San Francisco. Quever's work began when he used the apartment of a vacationing friend to record piano tracks for Cass McCombs. He has kept busy since, collaborating with such artists as Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, the Skygreen Leopards, and Vetiver. Two Papercuts albums arrived in the early 2000s: Rejoicing Songs (Cassingle USA) and Mockingbird (Antenna Farm). Can't Go Back was released in February 2007 through Gnomonsong, run by Devendra Banhart and Andy Cabic of Vetiver, and in support of that record, Papercuts toured throughout the U.S. with Grizzly Bear. Although, like many Papercuts releases, 2009's You Can Have What You Want was recorded at Quever's self-built Pan American home studio, this album was perhaps his most collaborative effort to date, with Alex Scally of Beach House not only contributing bass, keyboards, and percussion, but also assisting with string arrangements and session engineering.

Quever and company took an even lusher approach on 2011's Fading Parade, which was the first Papercuts album released by Sub Pop in the U.S. and featured production input from ex-Lilys and Pernice Brothers player Thom Monahan. After this, Quever took a break from the group, but stayed busy by assisting with numerous other musical projects. Both Gold Leaves' 2011 album The Ornament and Dean Wareham's late-2013 Emancipated Hearts benefited from his production skills. The next Papercuts album, Life Among the Savages, was released in May of 2014 for new labels Easy Sound in the U.S. and Memphis Industries in the U.K. ~ Kenyon Hopkin & James Wilkinson, Rovi