John Murry and Michael Timmins - A Little Bit of Grace and Decay

  by Zena Grieg

published: 29 / 10 / 2024

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Review

A Little Bit of Grace and Decay’ is the soundtrack accompanying the documentary ‘The Graceless Age' : The Ballad of John Murry’ by Director Sarah Share, which tells the story of Mississippi-raised American musician Murry, his abrupt descent from being on the cusp of stardom in 2013 into addiction and emerging on the other side, coming to terms with his life and exploring a resonating family connection with Novel Prize-winning author William Faulkner, who also had a history of addiction. The soundtrack, written by Murry and Mike Timmins (Cowboy Junkies), the first original material by Murry since 2017, is an unflinching exploration of the dark side of American life including the bloodstained history of his birthplace Mississippi. The album includes stripped-back versions of songs from Murry’s three albums as well as new compositions, interspersed with sections from the documentary score. A haunting sense of desolation and loneliness pervades the songs. Highlights of the eighteen-track collection include: the heartbreaking ‘Wrong Man’; the melancholic ‘Driving (part 1); ‘The Stars Are God’s Bullet Holes’ with its plaintive lines: “The stars are god’s bullet holes/And I’m becoming someone I didn’t know/the river runs wide, the rivers run deep/But darker currents separate you and me”; and the sparse instrumentals ‘Alleyway’ and ‘Tupelo’. Following a special screening of the documentary at London’s Rich Mix on September 16, Murry will be playing a number of acoustic shows at different venues across the UK and Ireland. Atmospheric, poignant, at times disturbing, ‘A Little Bit Of Grace And Decay’ is a defiant ode to survival.

Track Listing:-

1 Grace
2 Wrong Man
3 Swamp
4 Silver Or Lead
5 Driving (Part1)
6 Dark Side Of The Moon Again
7 Driving (Part 2)
8 Come Five And Twenty
9 Cave
10 The Stars Are Gods Bullet Holes
11 Alleyway
12 Mother Mary
13 Tupelo
14 Miss Magdalene
15 Murder
16 What Remains
17 Leprechaun
18 Decay

Label Links:-

http://www.tenorvossa.co.uk/

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