Monastic Love Songs David John Morris SKU: HINT003LP Barcode: 0746935235482 19.00 £19.00 Genre: Folk Label: Hinterground Records Released Date: 21st May 2021 Buying Format: 1LP Add to basket Reserve Add to your Wishlist Description Product Info Debut solo album by the Red River Dialect songwriter. Recorded at the Hotel2Tango, Montreal, by Howard Bilerman. Featuring Thor Harris (Swans, Thor & Friends, Shearwater) on drums and Thierry Amar (GYBE!, ASMZ) on bass, with guest appearances from Tom Relleen (RIP) (Tomaga, Melos Kalpa), Catrin Vincent (Another Sky) and Coral Rose (The Silver Field, Red River Dialect). David has written five critically acclaimed collections of songs under the Red River Dialect name. The last two albums (released by Paradise of Bachelors) achieved a glowing Pitchfork review and a Folk Album of the Month award from the Guardian. Selected press below. “Folk Album of the Month. Alert, anti-colonialist folk. Songwriter David Morris brings alternate seduction and disquiet on this worldly album steeped in the British landscape… a wide-eyed, curious creature, willingly alert to the world.” – 4/5 The Guardian “Animated with a new intensity, the Cornwall band’s fifth album may be its most ingenious and immersive mix of folk and rock yet. It’s also Morris’ most compelling set of songs. He invests small sensations with outsize power, finding joy in sensory pleasures as well as in the mystical inquests that music allows. Even as the record is steeped in the long history of British folk music, that balance of the tactile and the spiritual anchors these songs in the present moment.” – Pitchfork “The most underrated folk-rock band in Britain. The idea of them as a Cornish-born, Buddhist- inclined Waterboys is more potent than ever. Their fifth album of elementally-battered, rueful and rousing folk-rock … is as stirringly anthemic as they've managed thus far.” – MOJO “A beguilingly atmospheric record… imagine Steve Gunn transplanted to Kernow.” – Clash “Gorgeous and moving, anchored by the heft of the physical but reaching for more. The epic spareness, the way it manages to be both still and an enveloping swirl, reminds me most of Talk Talk. There’s a prayerful intensity to the quiet bits, a listening, wondering awe, that makes the rock payoffs more powerful. The album works as a restless, searching, gorgeous whole. Morris and his band have never been better.” – Dusted “It’s not often that a band comes along and over the course of nine songs both plays to the tradition and stands it on its ear. RRD has taken the challenge of playing with reckless abandon to heart, generating an album that stands on the shoulder of giants showing no fear.” Folk Radio Monastic Love Songs continues the tradition that David has established over the course of five albums with Red River Dialect: using a song cycle to articulate a relationship with inner and outer landscapes, inspired by the Taoist approach of observing the movement of the heavens in order to understand the cosmos within, and vice versa. The joyful closing track Inner Smile was initially written as a poem of thanks to his Tai Chi teacher Hollis and takes its name from a Taoist practice. The songs were written during the final weeks of a nine-month retreat at Gampo Abbey, a Buddhist monastery in Nova Scotia where David took ordination as Buddhist monk. The album title is sincere, with a little tongue-in-cheek. The songs mostly explore human relationships within the community, with outliers: Gone Beyond shimmers with cosmic devotion, in Rhododendron a reverie grows from the shadow of a flower. Steadfast concerns the love to be found beyond the urge to like and be liked, when you can’t avoid that difficult person. Leonard Cohen, on his six years living in a monastery: “You know, there’s a Zen saying: ‘Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish one another.’ David considers this album to be a follow up to 2015’s Tender Gold and Gentle Blue. The cover of that lp featured an image of him on top of Skellig Michael, in the years before the island was made famous as the home of the Jedi. He considers the visit to that abandoned Celtic monastic site to be one of the influences that stirred up his motivation. Skeleton Key speaks of what was given up to go, and what he was giving up to leave, referencing the Tibetan concept of the ‘bardo of becoming’. The album came about through a series of fortunate encounters. David’s friend Tom Relleen visited him at the Abbey in May 2019, mentioning a postponed plan to visit the Hotel2Tango. A spark was sown: this studio had long figured in David’s imagination. Many of the releases on Constellation Records, which he had become a die-hard fan of in his teens, were recorded there. Tom contributed some Buchla synthesizer to the opener New Safe, which concerns healing in emptiness and light. In May David was given permission by the senior monastics to acquire a guitar, which was swiftly baptised as “Malibu Barbie”. Having let the identity of being a songwriter loosen up, not playing an instrument in six months, he was unsure what would happen. In the single hour he was permitted to practice each day, songs began to cascade. The first, Purple Gold, concerns a reacquaintance with first love. David wrote to the Hotel2Tango asking if they had any days available in mid-July? Engineer and studio co-owner Howard Bilerman replied that they did, and a date was set. Did Howard know any local drummers or bass players who might do a session? He did, too many to choose from, what kind of style? David decided to ask for his ideal: did Thierry from Godspeed ever do sessions? Howard sent him the demos. Thierry was up for it. On the day he went deep into the cover of traditional song Rosemary Lane, his double bass singing on this and on Circus Wagon. David asked if there were any local drummers he would recommend? Thierry said “many, what style?” David tried his luck again, “two of my favourite drummers are Thor Harris and Jim White.” Thierry said let’s invite them. Thor, having met David a decade earlier, flew from Austin to Montreal for that July day in the studio. Nine months of watching thoughts come and go in meditation helped David recognise this as an opportunity to practice enjoying the day without expectations. He is, however, grateful that this album came out the way it did, channelling some of what it was like to live those nine months in a monastery overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, frozen and flowing. Mixed by Jimmy Robertson at SNAFU, London, mastered by Denis Blackham. Artist David John Morris Genre Folk Label Hinterground Records Buying Options 1LP Format 1LP Condition New Country UK Track Listings 1 New Safe 2 Purple Gold 3 Rhododendron 4 Circus Wagon 5 Earth and Air 6 Rosemary Lane (trad.) 7 Skeleton Key 8 Steadfast 9 Gone Beyond 10 Inner Smile Share this On Facebook On Twitter Via Email More from Folk View Product Quick View Sharon Van Etten Epic Folk | Ba Da Bing | 1LP, Includes Download Code Released 28th October 2010 £15.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Sharon Van Etten Epic £15.00 Genre: Folk Label: Ba Da Bing SKU: BING072 Formats: 1LP, Includes Download Code Released Date: 28th October 2010 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Nicole Atkins Goodnight Rhonda Lee Folk | Single Lock Records | 1LP, Includes Download Code Released 21st July 2017 £19.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Nicole Atkins Goodnight Rhonda Lee £19.00 Genre: Folk Label: Single Lock Records SKU: SL0211 Formats: 1LP, Includes Download Code Released Date: 21st July 2017 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Nearly New View Product Quick View Andy M Stewart & Manus Lunny Dublin Lady Folk | Green Linnet | 1LP Released 13th June 2014 £4.00 Add to basket Reserve View Reservations Andy M Stewart & Manus Lunny Dublin Lady £4.00 Genre: Folk Label: Green Linnet SKU: NN69763 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 13th June 2014 Reserve View Reservations Read More Add to basket View Product Quick View DEUX FURIEUSES Songs from Planet Earth Folk | Xtra Mile | 1LP Released 11th November 2022 £19.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders DEUX FURIEUSES Songs from Planet Earth £19.00 Genre: Folk Label: Xtra Mile SKU: XMR178LP Formats: 1LP Released Date: 11th November 2022 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Nearly New View Product Quick View Roy Harper Folkjokeopus Folk | Sunset | 1LP Released 29th February 2024 £12.00 Add to basket Reserve View Reservations Roy Harper Folkjokeopus £12.00 Genre: Folk Label: Sunset SKU: nn281968 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 29th February 2024 Reserve View Reservations Read More Add to basket View Product Quick View Mick Flannery White Lies Folk | UMR | 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released 18th November 2022 £19.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Mick Flannery White Lies £19.00 Genre: Folk Label: UMR SKU: 4578924 Formats: 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released Date: 18th November 2022 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Clem Snide Forever Just Beyond Folk | Ramseur | 1LP Released 27th March 2020 £15.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Clem Snide Forever Just Beyond £15.00 Genre: Folk Label: Ramseur SKU: RR4949829 Formats: 1LP Released Date: 27th March 2020 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Breath, The Land of My Other Folk | Real World Records | 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released 13th October 2023 £25.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Breath, The Land of My Other £25.00 Genre: Folk Label: Real World Records SKU: LPRW251 Formats: 1LP, Coloured Vinyl Released Date: 13th October 2023 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View Dierks Bentley The Mountain Folk | Decca | 2LP Released 8th June 2018 £25.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders Dierks Bentley The Mountain £25.00 Genre: Folk Label: Decca SKU: 6754784 Formats: 2LP Released Date: 8th June 2018 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders View Product Quick View William Elliott Whitmore Radium Death Americana / Country | Anti | 1LP, Includes Download Code Released 25th March 2015 £18.00 Back Order View Pre/Back Orders William Elliott Whitmore Radium Death £18.00 Genre: Americana / Country Label: Anti SKU: 8714092738216 Formats: 1LP, Includes Download Code Released Date: 25th March 2015 Read More Back Order View Pre/Back Orders See more in Folk Start again
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