In 2015, Red River Dialect released Tender Gold and Gentle Blue. In his review of that album, David Kidman described the songs of David John Morris as inhabiting a bittersweet milieu that’s every bit as understatedly heartrending as it is musically mesmerising. Hiss Golden Messenger‘s M.C. Taylor was more than happy to endorse that release – “Theirs is a focused longing, a confusion of soul, a visionary lamentation…”. Several years on, David has named his new solo album ‘Monastic Love Songs’, scheduled for release on May 21st 2021 via Hinterground Recordings, as its follow up. The cover of that 2015 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.
Monastic Love Songs is described as continuing 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 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 a Buddhist monk. The album title is sincere, with a little tongue-in-cheek.
The album came about through a series of fortunate encounters. David’s friend Tom Relleen visited him at the Abbey in May 2019, mentioning a postponed plan to visit the Hotel2Tango (an analogue recording studio in Montreal, Quebec). A spark was sown: this studio had long figured in David’s imagination. Many of the releases on Constellation Records, which he had become a die-hard fan of in his teens, were recorded there.
Tom contributed some Buchla synthesizer to the opener New Safe, which concerns healing in emptiness and light. The accompanying video for the song features picked together footage shot by David at the monastery:
David was given permission by the senior monastics to acquire a guitar, which was swiftly baptised as “Malibu Barbie”. Having let the identity of being a songwriter loosen up, not playing an instrument in six months, he was unsure what would happen. In the single hour he was permitted to practice each day, songs began to cascade.
After contacting Engineer and studio co-owner Howard Bilerman a date was set. Did Howard know any local drummers or bass players who might do a session? He did, too many to choose from, what kind of style? David decided to ask for his ideal: did Thierry from Godspeed ever do sessions? Howard sent him the demos. Thierry was up for it.
David asked if there were any local drummers he would recommend? Thierry said “many, what style?” David tried his luck again, “two of my favourite drummers are Thor Harris and Jim White.” Thierry said let’s invite them. Thor, having met David a decade earlier, flew from Austin to Montreal for that July day in the studio. Nine months of watching thoughts come and go in meditation helped David recognise this as an opportunity to practice enjoying the day without expectations.
He is, however, grateful that this album came out the way it did, channelling some of what it was like to live those nine months in a monastery overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence, frozen and flowing.
Pre-Order Monastic Love Songs: https://davidjohnmorris.bandcamp.com/