Announcing a new album, GRAVEYARD SEX, with video for “The Hypnotic Stand-by”

Today, Chris officially announces the upcoming release of his next album, Graveyard Sex. The album is available for pre-order on CD and digital formats today and will be released on November 11, 2020 by Armalyte Records.

This marks the fourth year in a row that Chris will celebrate his birthday with a new album. Preview the track “The Hypnotic Stand-by” now.

Pre-order the album now

Chris’s statement on the album:

I started writing what would become GRAVEYARD SEX in the autumn of 2019. I had been talking to a very ill Bill Rieflin, who had very recently lost his wife. We talked as we always talked, but he brought up the idea of my coming out to Seattle to work on some new music. I told him I would start getting some loose frameworks to perhaps work from, and we could start with a long weekend and see where we got and move on from there. At that time, there was a sadness in his voice and a fatigue from his illness, but the talk was very much of forward motion.

Sadly, it never happened; he became more tired and more ill, it quickly became apparent that we would not be able to get together and play music again. I continued to work on the music, and gradually the album became loosely based on Bill’s plight, his fight. Not literally, but for the most part figuratively and impressionistically.

The album is rich with musical references from things with which Bill and I shared a love — including the cover, which is a gallows humour homage to ROXY MUSIC’S “COUNTRY LIFE”, an album Bill told me was his favourite in one of our very frequent conversations about Roxy Music. The inclusion of a version of NICO’S “YOU FORGET TO ANSWER” was also a nod toward Bill, in that he introduced me to the song via a mixtape he made me just after we met in the late 80s.

The album’s title came from a joke I shared with Bill in my head. Very often, when I am writing, I use Bill as a sounding board or yardstick in my head to gauge the veracity or validity of what I am doing. (“Would Bill put a solo here? Would Bill think this was funny?”) GRAVEYARD SEX was me coming up with the most goth album title I could… I heard it being hissed through fangs in my head and I almost choked on my whisky, I laughed so hard. But after that, it became an image representing the meeting of death and life: graveyard and sex; and at the same time, it became a noun, a gender, a checkbox on a form? SEX: GRAVEYARD. It is all within the walls of this album.

One of the saddest parts of this record for me is the song “Lindsay Cooper”. Lindsay was musician we both admired, the beautiful bassoon player in the band HENRY COW, who suffered and eventually died from multiple sclerosis, like the tragedy of JAQUELINE DU PRE, the cellist who died from the same affliction. Both fought to keep playing, as did my friend Bill. They wanted to keep playing, and eventually, their efforts were thwarted.

This album is about facing death with life, inviting death into your life and trying hard to accommodate this unlikely guest.

Tracklist:

  1. Graveyard Sex
  2. Infinite Last Wish
  3. Silk Balune
  4. Lindsay Cooper
  5. The Hypnotic Stand-By
  6. The Heart Has To Ache Before It Learns To Beat
  7. Mesmerido
  8. For The Love Of The Tension
  9. You Forget To Answer
  10. Looking For A Coda

Album photography and artwork by Derick Smith. Album cover layout by Vlad McNeally.

Video for “The Hypnotic Stand-by” by Kimberly Blessing; shot on location all around Scotland.