Released 15 September 2008 - please pre-order below.
To buy a digital download of the album go
here.
The special limited edition of this album is only available through Antique Beat. It is presented in an exquisite full colour hard back book of extraordinary artwork of illustrator Catherine Anyango telling its story in a sequence of collaged tableaux together with texts by The Clerkenwell Kid and 'I Lucifer' author Glen Duncan. There is also a mystery gift if you can find it. It will be available from 14th September but pre-order below now to reserve a copy.
The album is the band's first in the UK since 2004's critical hit 'I Lucifer' but follows the US-only release 'The Return of the Clerkenwell Kid' and the Europe-only soundtrack to the 1948 cult classic "Dreams That Money Can Buy'.
Described by the band's Stephen Coates as 'a song-life-song cycle', it references the 'Tibetan Book of the Dead's description of the passage from the end of one existence to the beginning of another - all set against the backdrop of the imagined city. It is informed in part by his own recent passage through various life changing events.
A gorgeous sonic collage of clarinet, bluegrass, guitar, violins and oboe join electronic rythmns, spoken word and harmonised crooner vocals to provide a setting for the album's lyrical concerns of life, love, dreams and death. Long term collaborators Clive Painter, Jacques Van Rhijn, Jed Woodhouse and Don Brosnan are joined this time by The Puppini Sisters, cult theatre star Aurelia Thierree and Guillotines' vocalist Joe Coles. Future single "Last Words' is the featured song in upcoming US indie film "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" starring "Juno's" Michael Serra.
