''The Golden Communion'' is the sixth album by

Thighpaulsandra Timothy Lewis – best known by the stage name Thighpaulsandra – is a Welsh experimental musician and multi-instrumentalist, known mostly for performing on synthesizers and keyboards. He began his career working with Julian Cope in the late ...

, released on 4 September 2015. It marks Thighpaulsandra's return to solo work after nearly a decade of touring with

Spiritualized Spiritualized (stylised as Spiritualized®) are an English rock band formed in 1990 in Rugby, Warwickshire, by Jason Pierce (often known as J. Spaceman), formerly of Spacemen 3. After several line up-changes, in 1999, the band centred on Pie ...

Elizabeth Fraser Elizabeth Davidson Fraser (born 29 August 1963) is a Scottish singer. She was the vocalist for the band Cocteau Twins, who achieved success in the UK from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Their studio albums '' Victorialand'' (1986) and '' H ...

and

Wire file:Sample cross-section of high tension power (pylon) line.jpg, Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample d ...

. The album pulls from over ten years of recording sessions; as such, ''The Golden Communion'' boasts collaborations not only with Thighpaulsandra regulars Martin Schellard and

Siôn Orgon Sion is a name used in Wales and in other nations. Welsh name Siôn () or Sion is a Welsh form of the Anglo-Norman ''Jean'', pronounced in English similarly to the Irish name Seán. Notable people with the Welsh name include: People with the sur ...

, but also with

John Balance Geoffrey Nigel Laurence Rushton (16 February 1962 – 13 November 2004), better known under the pseudonyms John Balance or the later variation Jhonn Balance, was an English musician, occultist, artist and poet. He was best known as a co-founder ...

and

Peter Christopherson Peter Martin Christopherson (also known as Sleazy; 27 February 1955 – 25 November 2010) was an English musician, video director, commercial artist, designer and photographer, who was at one time a member of design agency Hipgnosis. He also ...

, the late founders of industrial band Coil. Overall, the music presented contains threads of

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluci ...

and

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early-to-mid-1970s. Initially termed " progressive pop", the ...

, featuring orchestrations and extended pop music song structures not heard before on a Thighpaulsandra album. ''The Golden Communion'' was released physically in 2CD and 3LP formats, as well as digitally in 24-bit FLAC.

Track listing

Personnel

– vocals,

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

synthesizers A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument that has a piano-style musical keyboard, where sound is produced by means of mechanical hammers striking metal strings or reeds or wire tines, which leads to vibrations which are then converted into ele ...

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

;

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

on "A Devil in Every Hedgerow" and "The More I Know Men…"; bass,

cittern The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the Renaissance. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is d ...

and

autoharp An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. The term ''autoharp'' was once a trademark of t ...

on "Valerie" * Martin Schellard – guitars; bass on "Salute", "The Golden Communion", "Misery" and "The Sinking Stone"; cittern on "The Foot Garden"; electronics on "A Devil in Every Hedgerow";

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that ...

on "Valerie" *

– drums; vocals on "Did He Fall?", "The Foot Garden, "The Golden Communion", "Misery", "The Sinking Stone", "On the Register";

AudioMulch AudioMulch is modular audio software for making music and processing sound. The software can synthesize sound and process live and pre-recorded sound in real-time. AudioMulch has a patcher-style graphical user interface, in which modules call ...

on "Did He Fall?" and "The More I Know Men…"; photography *

– vocals and effects on "Did He Fall?" and "The More I Know Men…";

singing bowls Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

and

ARP 2600 The ARP 2600 is a subtractive synthesizer first produced by ARP Instruments in 1971. History Developed by a design team headed by ARP namesake Alan R. Pearlman and engineer Dennis Colin, the ARP 2600 was introduced in 1971 as the successor to ...

on "The More I Know Men…" *

– "rhythmic interference" on "Did He Fall?" * Dirk Campbell –

duduk The duduk ( ; ) or tsiranapogh (, meaning "apricot-made wind instrument"), is a double reed woodwind instrument made of apricot wood originating from Armenia. Variations of the Armenian duduk appear throughout the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the ...

on "The Foot Garden" *Liam Thomas – Steim Cracklebox on "The Foot Garden" *The Maureen Wilson Quartet – strings on "The Golden Communion" *Helen Bishop – clarinet on "Misery" *Steve Cole – bass on "On the Register" *Dan Greensmith – vocals on "Valerie" *Rob Greensmith – vocals on "Valerie"; engineering *Joanna Swan – vocals on "Did He Fall?", "The Foot Garden", "Misery" and "Valerie" *Lara Ward – vocals on "Did He Fall?"; choreography *Nick Pullin – vocals on "Did He Fall?", "Misery" and "Valerie" *George McCarthy – vocals on "A Devil in Every Hedgerow" *Pan, Moon and Fox (dogs) – "dog stuff" on "The More I Know Men…" *Rashad Becker – mastering

References

Press release from Editions MEGOdiscogs.com entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Golden Communion Thighpaulsandra albums 2015 albums