Is This the Cumming of Sumer?
"There was an old man whose despair
Induced him to purchase a hare:
Whereon one fine day,
He rode wholly away,
Which partly assuaged his despair."
Edward Lear (and thank you, Uffe!)
Once again, I have managed to finish a small collection of songs. It should surprise no one that some of the major themes are apocalypse and romantic despair. I do tend to keep my projects rather short, partly in order to help sharpen my own focus and partly because I rarely seem to have the stamina to listen to albums of more than 30 minutes. myself, unless I really dig the artist. All songs (except 1 and 7) were originally written and released into the wild by Douglas Pearce as Death In June, over the course of his long and peculiar career. My versions are published without his permission or knowledge (although I do plan to let him know), but I expect that he wouldn't mind or care about my inhabiting his work for a while. If he did, I don't think it would change anything, as it is too late for him to fully own the songs, in any case. The title and cover art are based on a vivid dream that startled me a few years back, which I have previously described briefly in this space.
I have had a somewhat ambivalent (but totally one-sided) love affair with Death In June for a long time. His work has been hugely influential to me, but I have very rarely felt any direct impact on Moongazing Hare, despite our somewhat related playing fields. Throughout the recording and preparation of this album, I have been vacillating between great satisfaction and the fear that making a cover album (and especially covering someone so ostensibly similar to my own work) is just an expression of a general lack of substance. I feel, however, that I have been conquering new mental and emotional territory by gobbling up these songs, and I feel that I have achieved, fairly well, my goal of making these songs in their present incarnation both honest and my own. At this point, I think the album as a whole represents some of my finest work.
And it is entirely free, if you should wish to download it.
Track list:
1. Gather Stones or Turn to Dust
2. Hail! The White Grain
3. Fall Again
4. Despair
5. Rose Clouds of Holocaust
6. She Said Destroy
7. Worm Turn the Knife
Q: Is that your penis on the cover?
A: What? No! Why would you even say that? A hernia is a serious medical condition.
Q: Did you lie about anything, during this interview?
A: Just my hernia.
In other news, maybe it is the fact that the sky is grey, or maybe the fact that our landlord is mowing the lawn outside and we owe him money for electricity, but I seem to be momentarily out of self-esteem.