As anyone who’s followed Tangemeenie’s long, complicated history knows, it’s been somewhere close to six years since we last released an album. Our debut album, “Faust,” was co-released by an early incarnation of Cloud 13 Records (my own independent label—more on that here) and the legendary Animal World Recordings label (also one-time home to Frog Eyes and The Bingo Trappers, among others).Fueled by a CMJ Music Marathon showcase performance at the Knitting Factory in NY, generally positive critical responses and on-line exposure, and other early PR successes, the initial release of “Faust” quickly went into a second pressing.
Nevertheless, Lori and I soon put Tangemeenie on hold to write and perform full-time with the band, Pocket Novel Mystery.Pocket Novel Mystery formed more or less accidentally while Lori and I were putting together a new live-line up for Tangemeenie. Pocket Novel Mystery just seemed to take on a life of its own somehow, carrying us along for the ride. And what a ride it was.
While maintaining a grueling year-round live performance schedule, Pocket Novel Mystery (or "PNM") self-produced a full-length named “Eight Days in the Life of Grace,” of which we sold a limited number of advance copies at live performances.
Finishing “Eight Days…” took longer than originally planned because twice during the initial recording sessions, Lori and I were forced to take extended leaves from studio work to travel to Germany, where my mother had been diagnosed first with breast cancer and later with liver cancer.Her cancer later proved terminal.
In the meantime, interpersonal tensions between the members of PNM had begun mounting for other reasons, and our drummer and bassist Marcus and Erica—who, like Lori and I, were also married—began having personal problems of their own, culminating in their departure from the group and a bitter divorce.
Determined to plod ahead anyway despite these setbacks in hopes of promoting "Eight Days..." to a wider audience, Lori and I continued performing as PNM with a new lineup that featured Nate Sadler (Soft Targets) and Brian Giblet (Crooked Fingers, Bullnecks) for another year or so. During this time, we toured extensively throughout the Southeast, but the rigors of touring and our growing disappointment over the original line-up's tumultuous break-up soon wore us down.With our first child on the way, Lori and I played our last show as PNM sometime in late 2006. For this final performance, Lori and I returned to the two-person lineup we had first used when performing as Tangemeenie.
Now, finally, we're getting around to working on a follow-up release to "Faust," and this time we plan to do it all ourselves, literally. And through this blog, we hope to share some of that experience with you, our long-suffering friends and fans.
To get this project off on the right foot, here's an unreleased rough mix of a track from the new album we're calling "The Gilded Age."
In the coming weeks, we'll keep updating this blog with detailed notes on the production of this and other tracks, more downloads, reports on our progress on the new album, and other goodies.
In the meantime, here's the new track. It's called "King of Flesh and Bone."
