Dump is the one man project of James McNew, the bassist, keyboardist and occasional lead singer of Yo La Tengo. A few of his songs sound a lot like Yo La Tengo, but he possesses more breadth in terms of genre and he is not afraid to be too experimental. I guess he just wants to safely play with his geeky and unconventional musical tendencies as an extracurricular activity, away from the hegemony of the married members of the group he is third wheeling. He sings many low key pop songs, typical singer songwriter guitar pieces and then adds lo-fi experiments, or samples from obscure tunes to make them unpredictable. I should mention, there are a lot of covers; some are ok, some are good, and many of them are very genuine. In fact, his album That Skinny Motherfucker With the High Voice? is a compilation of songs written by the artist formerly known as "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince"
Though none of his albums could be classified as a masterpiece, McNew makes one of the most intimate sounds that I have ever listened. He lacks pretension, his sound is very expressive and he can get away with being out of tune. A lot of reviewers use the word charming to describe his music and I agree that it might be the good word to use but I would rather call his sound tender lo-fi. A kind that you should listen to with your bunny slippers on, milk and cookies on the side.
All his albums, except his latest release A Grown-Ass Man were recorded with a cassette deck in his Brooklyn apartment, by him. He also played all the instrumens and put the most huggable bunny cartoons on his album art.
Discography
1993 Superpowerless
1995 International Airport (EP)
1995 You and I (EP)
1995 I Can Hear Music
1997 Phantom Perspective/The Lie (EP)
1998 A Plea for Tenderness
1999 Women in Rock
2001 That Skinny Motherfucker With the High Voice?
2003 A Grown-Ass Man