Life, Death, Damnation, Peace features five tracks and is the 5th solo album from MDH. Each track has an introduction which emerges from the motif before settling into a song in a more conventional form, which leads to an extended outro eventually receding towards and coming to rest on the 5-note motif once again.
The idea came from a proposed solution to the problem of track order. Once the 5 tracks had settled in a definite form, no satisfactory sequence suggested itself, so an idea emerged to have the tracks proceed from the same motivic starting point so that the tracks would flow naturally in any order. Then I would designate this as a “shuffle” album, where people would be encouraged to set their players to play the tracks in a random order and enjoy a slightly different arc for each listen. Attractive as this idea was, once recording was underway a particular track order did become irresistible, so although the plans for the beginning and endings of tracks have endured, “shuffle” play is no longer specifically encouraged. You can do whatever you like of course, if you buy it. The current order outlines a fairly classic thematic journey through life, strife, ending, atonement and repose - and the album title is reference to this.
All of the music was written and produced by MDH - Michael Humphrey. He plays all of the instruments, except for the violin parts, which were performed with fire and grit by Jennifer Henderson.
Mastering: Ed Woods
Artwork: Alice Frecknall
Visit mdhmusic.com for more music and information.
Life, Death, Damnation, Peace has something of a fairy tale about it, carried through on a dark undercurrent the like the brothers Grimm would be at home with. At times lilting or surprisingly jovial, as in ‘The End of World War I’, at others harsh and discordant, as in ‘The Man Who Cried in Death’, each track unfolds to reveal new layers of musical intricacies, narrative, and emotion.
When creating the artwork for the album cover, I really wanted to work with these ideas of layering and texture that feel so fundamental to the music. This is where the use of collage and mixed media came into play. Similarly, it felt right to juxtapose the abstract landscape and the detailed realistic images that break through the background, drawing inspiration from the way the music and lyrics dip in and out of the surreal.
Each time I listened to the tracks, certain images stood out more and more: the scorpion; the weathervane, branch, and door of ‘The Man Who Cried in Death’; the hornet and the second hand of the clock that feature in ‘The Hornet’. These are the images I began to build up in the artwork. On first seeing the album cover one doesn’t necessarily notice their specific presence, but then each element starts to come through the closer or longer you look. This mirrors my experience of first hearing the album; it wasn’t until I had listened a few times to the music, paying attention to the lyrics and the mix, that I began to notice more and more detail within it.
With each track MDH Music has achieved a unique tone and style and at the same time has created an album that holds together and feels complete as one extended piece. It feels unfair to pick favourites when every track delivers a sound truly of its own with so much rich complexity, but for me ‘At Capacity’ and ‘The Hornet’ have to be the songs that have really got into my head and stuck around, in the best of ways.\"
