David Howard - Spark - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

César Franck's Choral No. 2 in B Minor from Trois Chorals performed on the organ by Jan Vladimir Michalko.

Bulbous Monocle focuses it's lens further into the legacy and archives of the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. These Things Remain Unassigned-a phrase coined by Brian Hageman, one of the band's musical snake appendages emanating from it's Medusa crown-is presented as a double LP (gatefold jacket with a twelve page libretto). It gathers together the band's singles, compilation tracks, outtakes and never before released gems encompassing the arc of TFUL's musical corpus. Every track has been surgically remastered by Mark Gergis (Porest / Sublime Frequencies / Mono Pause) with his signature craftsman approach. This collection is an auditory and visual feast. The extensive booklet included features band ephemera, concert flyers, photographs, and commentary about each track from Mark Davies. Beyond the rare singles and unreleased tracks from the TFUL archives, are cover versions from such disparate artists and composers as Ennio Morricone, Krzysztof Komeda, The Residents, The Shaggs, Caroliner Rainbow and Pérez Prado. Inch... In addition to these compilation one-offs, there were also a few studio recordings that were never quite completed or released. Throw in an alternate mix or two and the handful of singles that came out on various labels over the years, and you end up with what I feel works well as it's own body of work, a bunch of adopted oddballs that somehow fit together as a family. I hope you'll agree with me that these things are now no longer unassigned, but part of a somewhat cohesive whole, stitched together into something mysterious and glistening.Inch -Mark Davies (2023)

David Gray is back doing what he does better than almost anyone, and fans of complex, serious, lyrical songcraft should rejoice. Dear Life may be the deepest, strangest, loveliest album this pioneering British singer-songwriter has ever delivered. Years in the making, it is an album of emotional crisis and resolution, mortality and faith, reality and illusion, love and heartbreak, magic, science, loss and acceptance. Dear Life is David Gray's 13th album. It's the result of Incha starburst of songwritingInch... it just seemed like the gods of songwriting were being kind. An album of emotional crisis and resolution, mortality and faith, reality and illusion, love and heartbreak, magic, science, loss and acceptance. While it is full of yearning and hope, there is an undercurrent of darkness, a tension between competing forces of hope and despair a cavalcade of emotions in what is his most lyrically-focused collection to-date.