Search - Michael Fracasso :: Saint Monday

Announcing the release of Michael Fracasso s seventh album, Saint Monday. The recording marks a more experimental path for Fracasso, who's been a nationally acclaimed singer-songwriter for two decades. Rather than take a more conventional approach to his newest material, Fracasso called in his friend, novelist Jim Lewis, to produce and play on the record -- Lewis first -- and co-write a few of the songs. It s like being called down from the stands to coach the Yankees, say Lewis. For Lewis -- whose most recent novel, The King is Dead (Knopf), was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year -- it was a chance to work with some of his favorite musicians including Patty Griffin, who lends her incomparable voice (and her lesser-known whistling skills) to a rocking Everly style duet called Ada, OK and Kevin Russell and Jimmy Smith from the legendary Gourds. The opening track, While the Night is Young, begins with Fracasso s distinctive voice and builds into a raw, howling electric anthem. It s followed by a pop song, Eloise, that runs straight and swift as an arrow, and Little Lover, which offers a version of country rock that s part Rolling Stones and part Bakersfield. Elizabeth Lee, a dark tale of betrayal and murder, begins with a lone acoustic guitar and builds into the savage noise of a steel-mill in full production, while the title song, Saint Monday, takes an 18th Century expression that meant too hungover to go to work , and expands it into a shimmering portrait of a man on the edge, seeking a redemption that lies just out of reach. The album also includes Working Class Hero the John Lennon classic, transformed by a dub-reggae rhythm and electric guitars as brutal as the lyrics (an edited, radio-friendly version is also available.) Rounding out the recording is the gorgeous pop song Broken Souvenirs that tells an epic story of love and loss in two minutes, Gypsy Moth, a mystical ballad tinged with highlight rhythms, and lastly, Another Million a fragile prayer of a song, recorded in the darkest hours of the night.