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01. David John Morris - New Safe
02. David John Morris - Purple Gold
03. David John Morris - Rhododendron
04. David John Morris - Circus Wagon
05. David John Morris - Earth and Air
06. David John Morris - Rosemary Lane (trad.)
07. David John Morris - Skeleton Key
08. David John Morris - Steadfast
09. David John Morris - Gone Beyond
10. David John Morris - Inner Smile
ARTIST
TITLE
Monastic Love Songs
FORMAT
LP

LABEL
CATALOG #
HINT 003LP HINT 003LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
8/13/2021

LP version. Debut solo album by the Red River Dialect songwriter, David John Morris. 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). 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: 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". Recorded at the Hotel2Tango, Montreal by Howard Bilerman.