***Night, Sleep, Death is the third full-length album by songwriting juggernaut THE WINGDALE COMMUNITY SINGERS. It finds the core trio of HANNAH MARCUS, RICK MOODY, and DAVID GRUBBS augmented by a cast of effortlessly sympatico guests including JOLIE HOLLAND, TANYA DONELLY, and ONEIDA’s KID MILLIONS. The Wingdale Community Singers first convened in 2003 to take a whack at crafting a repertoire of unkillable songs. The group brings together the criminally underrated songwriter and vocalist Hannah Marcus (last heard solo on the 2003 album Desert Farmers, made in collaboration with members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor), writer Rick Moody (best known for his novels The Four Fingers of Death, Purple America, and The Ice Storm, as well as the recent non-fiction collection On Celestial Music), and the guitarist and Gastr del Sol and Red Krayola alum David Grubbs. Night, Sleep, Death adds another Brooklyn-based lyricist to the group, Walt Whitman, whose poetry forms the basis of a three-song Whitman sampler at the center of the album, including the title song (approximately), “Night, Sleep, Death, and the Stars.” Indeed, bringing Whitman’s smoldering phrases into play (“I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only”) seems to have altered the basic tenor of the Wingdales’ lyrics, making their overtures and gambits all the more direct. No Export to Europe. (STREET DATE - 2/19/2013)
LP $19.50
02/19/2013