Michael and the band will release their 12th album, another double-album (their 5th) - Memories of the Sky - on Slugg Records on December 1st.
The album takes its inspiration from the epic series of paintings, drawings and poems by 19th century French artist Louis Janmot - “Le Poeme De L’ame”.
As Michael explains: “Janmot’s premise and our own to to tell is the tale of our vague yet potent memories of the life and lives before and our transit to the one we currently inhabit. In everyday life and especially in dreams, these memories come to us. The beginning of the story - Janmot’s depiction of the guardian angel flying from heaven to earth with the soul of a child - is where we got the title and inspiration. The memory of a sky full of traffic, angels protectively carrying souls to and from earth, to and from mortality, both at life’s inception and at its end. With his breathtaking imagery in mind, and as inspiration, we set out to depict a similar journey with this collection of music, words and sounds: the longing, the faith, the visions, the darkness, the hope, the desire to be good. The faint but insistent remembrance of things unseen but known”.
The album is a continuum across two discs titled individually - Disc One: The Clouds Darken; Disc Two: A Winter Light. Listeners can let it all unfold over two hours in one go or with a rest stop intermission built in, as the trip sojourns gradually from shadows into luminescence.
The new album is avail for preorder on Bandcamp.
